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AMERICA 
FACES THE FUTURE 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

HBW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OP CANADA. Lro. 

TORONTO 



AMERICA 
FACES THE FUTURE 



BY 

DURANT DRAKE 

A.M. (Harvard): Ph.D." (Columbia) 

Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College 

Author of Problems of Conduct^ Problems of Religiorit 

Shall We Stand by the Church? etc. 



I13eto gotfe 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1922 

All rights reserve^ 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA 



EM 



Copyright, 1922, 
By the ilACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and printed. Published March, 1922. 



Press of 

J. .T. Little & Ives Companv 
New York, U. S. A. 



g)%A6o3988 MAR -I 1922 



PREFACE 

Many books have been written to explain to foreign 
peoples what we are; such books naturally tend to 
self-congratulation and eulogy of our virtues, for it 
is an instinct to speak highly of ourselves to others. 
This volume takes a graver and more critical attitude ; 
it has been written not as a description of what we 
are but as a reminder of what we ought to be. Its 
readers are asked to consider in these pages what our 
priceless heritage of American ideals actually is, and 
how far we are being faithful to our inheritance. 

There is perpetual need of thus clarifying and forti- 
fying our own traditional ideals, of renewing our 
understanding of them and evoking within our breasts 
a deepened loyalty. For the American spirit is con- 
tinually endangered by sectionalism, class rifts, the 
selfishness of the fortunate and the bitterness of the 
unfortunate, the cynicism of the sophisticated and the 
complacency of the prosperous. We do not want to 
rubber-stamp our fellows ; but we do want to produce 
a common devotion to the dreams that have made our 
nation great, and a widespread demand for their real- 
ization. Our future will be safe if we can instil into 
all classes and groups a true American-mindedness. 

With this end in view the book has been divided 
into five Parts, each of which describes one of our 
fundamental national ideals, and discusses its appli- 
cation to various contemporary problems, each chap- 
ter treating of one such sphere of application. The 
reading-lists have been carefully selected from the 



VI 



PREFACE 



great mass of material available, and refer in general 
to books that are both interesting and of real merit, 
books that should be found in every public library 
of any size. The periodical-references are, similarly, 
in most cases to such periodicals as may be found in 
the ordinary library, rather than to the learned peri- 
odicals which are not so generally accessible. In 
order to cover the field, this volume can only sketch 
many matters of great importance. It is hoped, how- 
ever, that it will prove a stimulus to these further 
readings, where the specific problems may be found 
treated with the attention to detail which they deserve. 
This is no time in the history of our country for 
inert complacency; the gravest problems loom before 
us. We are but at the threshold of our national 
achievement. Our greatest danger lies in the astonish- 
ing ignorance of masses of our people, including many 
of the so-called educated, with respect to existing 
social and political conditions. Our greatest hope lies 
in education upon these topics, together with a re- 
newed loyalty to the spirit that has actuated the no- 
blest of our countrymen. It is the hope of the author 
that here and there one will be led to be truer to that 
spirit by the perusal of these pages. 



CONTENTS 

PAOB 
CHAPTER 

I Introduction i 

PART I. LIBEETY 

II Political Liberty 11 

III Civil Liberty 19 

IV Constitutional Guaranties ... 28 
V Individualism ^^ 

VI Free Speech 49 

VII Law and Order 59 

PART II. EQUALITY 

VIII Justice for All o 71 

IX Racial Equality 82 

X Education for All 94 

XI Health for All 105 

XII Work for All 115 

XIII Prosperity for All 128 

XIV The Square Deal 141 

PART III. DEMOCRACY 

XV Political Democracy . . . 

XVI Political Honesty . . . 

XVII Representative Government 

XVIII Democracy in Journalism . 

XIX Democracy in Industry . . 

vii 



157 
168 
181 
196 
210 



Vlll 



XX 

XXI 

XXII 

XXIII 

XXIV 



XXV 

XXVI 

XXVII 

XXVIII 

XXIX 



CONTENTS 

PAET IV. EFFICIENCY 

Big Business 225 

Collective Bargaining .... 238 

Morale 250 

Conservation 260 

The Common Good 271 

PAKT V. PATEIOTISM 

America First 285 

Peaceableness 296 

Hands Across the Seas .... 308 

Americanization 320 

Faith in America 331 



AMERICA 
FACES THE FUTURE 



AMERICA FACES THE 
FUTURE 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTION 



Few nations have been as self-conscious in their 
ideals as ours. Its birth was signalized by an explicit 
and passionate declaration of the principles that jus- 
tified its separate existence and were to be its guid- 
ing-star. For approximately a century and a half 
that Declaration has received the wholehearted alle- 
giance of our people and has drawn to our shores 
millions who saw in it the hope of salvation, the sign 
of the Promised Land. 

This is, as the kaleidoscope of history turns, a long 
time for so specific a tradition to persist. The insti- 
tutions and avowed ideals of Great Britain, of France, 
of most of the older nations, have undergone profound 
modification during this period within which our 
ideals have hardly been challenged. Germany and 
Italy are new nations, the other American republics 
are our younger sisters. We have seen within a gen- 
eration revolutionary changes in national ideals in 
China, in Japan, and other ancient lands. The dom- 
inance of democratic ideals in Russia and the several 
mid-European nations is of yesterday. So that we, 

1 



2 AMERICA FACES THE FUTURE 

who were once the pioneer republic, are now the 
oldest, stablest, as well as the most prosperous; and 
probably the most truly conservative force in the life 
of the world. 

There can be no doubt that this stability, this pros- 
perity, this eminence which we have attained among 
the nations of the earth, is due in large measure to 
the spiritual vision of our fathers. Our success has 
indeed exceeded all expectations ; and it is surely not 
without reason that Americans are proud of their 
country. But it is a rare event in history for such a 
vision to remain unclouded under the stress of internal 
and external strains, and the many temptations to 
a lower moral code. Not always have the noble sen- 
timents of our Founders guided our national policies 
or our individual efforts. And in spite of the crusad- 
ing spirit in which we entered the Great War, to make 
the whole world safe for such a democratic life as we 
had here established, there are many signs that a 
spiritual weariness has followed this patriotic fervor, 
and that all sorts of acts and attitudes inconsonant 
with our acknowledged ideals are increasingly prev- 
alent. 

M. Guizot once asked the poet Lowell, how long this 
republic would last; the reply was, "As long as the 
ideas of the men who founded it.'' Certainly business 
prosperity and victory on the field of battle are no 
guaranty of any nation's future ; the cardinal requisite 
is that its heart be sound, its moral fibre on a par 
with its material achievements. It may be said, of 
course, that other ideals than those which we have 
followed would lead us to an even greater destiny, 
and that we should substitute for Americanism the 
spirit, say, of international Socialism or Communism, 
or some other exotic theory and hope. Certainly there 



INTRODUCTION 3 

is much to be said for some of these alien ideals and 
dreams. But the substitution of such an untried 
program for the tested traditions that have been our 
guide would be to forsake a proved good for an un- 
certainty, a stable policy for a vaguely charted and 
dangerous course. By all means let these experiments 
be tried in lands where change is needed ; let us watch 
with sympathy and lend a helping hand. But for us 
there can be no hesitation. We know our own hearts, 
the path is straight before us. Our duty is still to 
follow the gleam that has led our people so far, and to 
bring to realization these long-cherished hopes. 

Without arguing, then, the relative merits of Amer- 
icanism as compared with other moral principles that 
have been adopted elsewhere, or can be conceived, it 
is for us to define as clearly as possible these ideals 
to which we, at least, are committed, and to seek to 
win for them, in this country, a universal and hearty 
allegiance. To break with them would be to plunge 
into chaos ; we must grow in the line of our past. No 
party can possibly succeed here if it ignores the 
psychology and traditions of our people. And on the 
other hand, no essentially new ideals will be necessary 
if we are genuinely loyal to the old. If we can make 
men true Americans there will be no need for them to 
seek elsewhere for the impulse that will eventually 
solve our hardest problems. As Stanton Coit once 
wrote, "Convert men to democracy and you will have 
no occasion to convert them to socialism.^' 

It is unhappily true, however, that the word "Amer- 
icanism'^ is often used as a cloak for selfish interests 
and a buffer against progress. As Roosevelt said, 
"There are plenty of scoundrels always ready to try 
to belittle reform movements or to bolster up existing 
iniquities in the name of Americanism." More recently 



4 AMEEICA FACES THE FUTUEE 

Professor John Dewey has called our attention to 
this situation : ^^I find that many who talk the loud- 
est about the need of a supreme and unified Ameri- 
canism of spirit really mean some special code or 
tradition to which they happen to be attached. They 
have some pet tradition which they would impose upon 
all/' A "League for Americanism" in one of our 
great States has recently been organized, apparently 
for the actual purpose of defeating health insurance 
and other "welfare" bills. An organizer of the 
League is quoted as saying to one of its paid lecturers, 
"The Americanism part of it is a joke. . . . You can 
go ahead and stir up sentiment on Americanism, and 
other men will follow after you to attend to the freak 
legislation." 

This pseudo-patriotic propaganda is but a camou- 
flage for the self-seeking of various selfish interests. 
Or it may be the expression of an instinctive hatred 
of aliens. We have lately seen, for example, foreign 
musicians of genius and refinement, men whose con- 
duct and manners were irreproachable, humiliated 
and persecuted by those who call themselves "One 
hundred per cent Americans." Surely, as the first 
commandment to the ancient Jews was, "Thou shalt 
not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," so 
the first demand upon our honor should be not to use 
this name of ours that symbolizes the noblest and most 
unselfish aspirations except as our hearts are gen- 
uinely devoted to those ends. 

No doubt, much of this reactionary spirit is hon- 
estly deemed American by its possessors. Washington 
and Hamilton were reviled as un-American by the Jef- 
fersonians, Lincoln by the anti-abolitionists, Roosevelt 
by the stand-patters. Any reformer who seeks to 
bring about, even by the most legitimate and peaceful 



INTRODUCTION $ 

means, better political or industrial arrangements is 
looked at askance by those who think that wisdom 
came to an end with the passing of their fathers. This 
complacency, this stubborn inertia, is, on the contrary, 
the most dangerous foe of the true American spirit, 
which has always been adventurous, forward-looking, 
liberative of new energies and a growing hope. We 
can not advance by breaking with our traditions ; but 
we must forever be applying these great traditions 
to the new situations that arise, and discovering new 
meanings in their well-worn words. If Americanism 
meant the petrifying of our social order in Eighteenth 
or Nineteenth Century grooves, then, indeed, we 
should do well to turn to other creeds, or found a 
new tradition for ourselves. 

The fact is, however, that the dreams of our fathers, 
embodied in their memorable phrases, have never yet 
been more than half realized. It is for us to carry 
on the work of actualizing these dreams, of working 
out into practice what was for them a hope and an 
ideal. Our history has been a zigzag, bungling ex- 
periment in self-government. Democracy is a simple 
concept, but extraordinarily difficult to live up to. 
We need continually to renew our faith in it and to 
attack the dangers which still beset it and threaten 
to make it little more than a name. We must beware 
the spirit, then, that would consecrate our mistakes 
as well as our achievements, or look upon the task 
that our fathers began as completed. Those fathers 
of ours had great courage and a clear vision of the 
road that leads to man's social salvation. But all 
they could do was to make a start. If we have caught 
their spirit we shall not sit still, content with their 
work. On the contrary, as our own poet wrote, "New 
occasions teach new duties" ; it is yet a long task to 



6 AMEEICA FACES THE FUTUEE 

complete the building of the ideal democracy whose 
foundation-stones they laid. 

It cannot, then, be too forcibly said that our her- 
itage is not a set of perfect institutions but a set of 
inspiring ideals. Just as Christianity for centuries 
has been hindered with superstitions and errors taken 
over from the Jewish and pagan faiths, and has had to 
struggle long to rid itself of these corruptions and 
realize its own ideal, so Americanism has been subject 
to all sorts of compromises and cloudings, and has 
never yet fully expressed itself in the general prac- 
tice. No one of us is exempted from the task of scru- 
tinizing our social and political life, to determine how 
far it truly reflects our avowed ideals, and how far 
it yet fails to do so. There is still need not only of 
devotion but of criticism; Americanism should be 
taken to mean not what we actually have achieved, 
but what the best of us are trying to achieve. The 
temptations that prosperity and power have brought 
to us make it peculiarly important that we renew the 
visions of our nation's youth. As the Ked Queen 
found, in Alice in Wonderland, it takes a lot of run- 
ning to stand still — to keep from backsliding. 

The chapters that follow will, therefore, continually 
remind the reader "to distinguish between idealism 
and the idealization of ourselves." They are written 
in the conviction that the true solution for the ills — 
which every candid student recognizes — ^in our body 
politic is more liberty, more equality, more democ- 
racy, more efficiency, more patriotism. In short, that 
the way to save America is to genuinely Americanize 
Americans. 



INTKODUCTION 



SUGGESTED READINGS 



N. Foerster and W. W. Pierson, Jr., American Ideals. 

M. S. Fulton, National Ideals and Problems. 

C. W. Eliot, American Contributions to Civilization. 

H. W. Mabie, American Ideals. 

H. van Dyke, The Spirit of America. 

G. Rodrigues, The People of Action. 

H. Miinsterberg, American Traits. 

J. G. Brooks, As Others See Us. 

E. A. Steiner Introducing the American Spirit. 

C. S. Cooper, American Ideals, Chapters I, IV, V, X. 

B. M. Sheridan, The Liberty Reader. 

C. A. and M. B. Beard, American Citizenship. 



m 



PART I 
LIBERTY 



CHAPTER II 

POLITICAL LIBERTY 

Liberty is the foremost of the great ideals to whose 
service our nation was dedicated. We still stamp 
the word upon our coins, the famous statue in New 
York harbor still welcomes the oppressed of every 
land ; millions have come to our shores to breathe this 
freer air, and millions of others have kept up courage 
through the thought of American freedom. 

First among the various embodiments of this ideal 
we may speak of that political liberty that was as- 
serted in the historical Declaration of Independence — 
^^these colonies are, and of light ought to be, free and 
independent States.'^ 

Of the Revolution which won this political inde- 
pendence. President Wilson has said, "It was not 
urged on by disorderly passions, but went forward in a 
love of order and legality." The Declaration recites 
the reasons that necessitated the step, and urges that 
"when a long train of abuses and usurpations . . . 
evinces a design to reduce [a people] under absolute 
despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw 
off such government, and to provide new guards for 
their future security." But, it goes on to say, "a 
decent regard to the opinions of mankind requires 
that they should declare the causes which impel them 
to the separation." 

It is clear to any one who reads the history of the 
Revolution that the British rulers of that day were 

11 



12 LIBERTY 

stupidly blind to the needs and instincts of their sub- 
jects over seas. The slowness of communication made 
an adequate representation of the Colonies in the 
British Parliament impossible; but this physical 
difficulty was less serious than the mental barriers 
that were interposed. It is probable, indeed, that 
a greater patience would have presently solved the 
problems, and ended the tyrannies under which the 
colonists suffered, and that the mother country would 
in time have granted us autonomy of her own free 
will, without the cost of war. But it was impossible 
for our forefathers to foresee the growth of liberalism 
in England ; and in fighting for liberty and democracy 
they were tearing old ties for what they cherished as 
most precious in life. Patrick Henry voiced this 
spirit in his memorable speech before the Virginia 
Convention of Delegates, on the twenty-third of March 
1775 : ''Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be 
purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" 

The American colonists were not a backward peo- 
ple, to be autocratically ruled from across the ocean. 
They were trained in self-government, politically as 
intelligent as any of their contemporaries; and they 
deserved what we now call self-determination. That 
this should have been granted them only after a long 
and unhappy war is a matter for profound regret. 
Not only because war is always a great evil, but be- 
cause the memory of this war has made an ''ancient 
grudge" between us and the British people, who are 
blood-brothers to many of us and spiritual brothers 
to us all. At this day their ideals, and those of the 
English-speaking peoples throughout the world, are 
on the whole probably nearer to our own than those 
of any other people. 

But the political separation has had many excellent 



POLITICAL LIBERTY 13 

results. It taught England a salutary lesson, as 
Burke acknowledged ; it showed her how not to treat 
her colonists, and paved the way for the present-day 
autonomy of her self-governing Dominions. It proved 
a great impetus to political and social thinking and 
organization in this country, and advertised to the 
world the principle of Liberty as perhaps nothing else 
could have done ; so that the years following it saw the 
assertion of similar principles in many other coun- 
tries. It enabled us to acquire the Western lands — 
which never would have been allowed to pass peace- 
fully into British hands — and thus to extend our 
sovereignty from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The 
loss of efficiency which naturally comes through the 
political division of a larger unit was scarcely felt, 
owing to the meagre and slow communications with 
the Old World. Doubtless in some ways a provincial 
spirit was encouraged. But certainly patriotism was 
vastly stimulated; and through the stress of the 
emergency the spirit and hopes of those pioneers were 
crystallized into the principles that we today call 
Americanism. 

Happily, the schism has long been healed in spirit, 
although no political reunion has been attempted. 
For well over a century there has been no war, and 
scarcely a rumor of war, between us. Many English- 
men at the time of our Revolution sided with us ; and 
even in Parliament we had staunch defenders. Now 
all Englishmen acknowledge that these were in the 
right, and unite in honoring our Washington and 
Lincoln, and the other great men that our nation has 
produced. And they, with the rest of the world, agree 
now in principle, if not always yet in every concrete 
case, with our assertion of the right of every people 
to determine its own destinies. 



14 LIBERTY 

This principle was put by President Wilson, when 
stating our war-aims, as the rule that "no people 
must be forced under sovereignty under which it does 
not wish to live.'' Again he spoke, in his Address to 
the Senate, on January 22, 1917, of the "principle 
that Governments derive all their just powers from 
the consent of the governed, and that no right any- 
where exists to hand peoples about from sovereign- 
ty to sovereignty as if they were property. . . . 
[This is a] political principle which has always been 
held very dear by those who have sought to build up 
America." 

America was naturally foremost in sympathy with 
the ideals of the French Revolution, with Kossuth, 
with Garibaldi, with the Greek patriots, and the Rus- 
sian revolutionists. Our Monroe Doctrine was the 
announcement to the world that we stood ready to 
protect the freedom of the South and Central Ameri- 
can republics. And in the Great War, we fought to 
save the oppressed nationalities of Europe from alien 
domination. Our action in setting Cuba up as an in- 
dependent nation, after we had spent money and lives 
in ousting her earlier oppressors, was almost unpre- 
cedented in the history of the great nations, and 
proves that we practise what we preach. 

In the light of all this, it is obvious that we can not 
permanently retain our sovereignty over the Philip- 
pines, if the majority of the natives desire their inde- 
pendence. As they are alien to us by race, by lan- 
guage, and by their traditions, it is altogether prob- 
able that the mass of them will wish to be free, in spite 
of possible advantages for them of American rule. 
It is true that we paid twenty million dollars to Spain 
for the Islands, besides the cost of the war. And 



POLITICAL LIBERTY 15 

since then our government has expended over three 
hundred million dollars in bringing to them the bene- 
fits of civilization. But we are rich and prosperous, 
they were poor and ignorant ; we should not begrudge 
the help we have given them or allow our financial 
outlay to blind us to their elemental right to their 
freedom. In spite of our unprecedentedly altruistic 
rule, there have been some wrongs inflicted, there has 
been friction, such as inevitably arises when one race 
rules another. As Lincoln said, in the often-quoted 
words, ^'No man is good enough to govern another 
man without that other man's consent.'' 

The problem of the right moment at which to free 
them is one of expediency, so long as the release is 
not too long delayed. It may be wisest to wait until 
they have had a more widespread education and longer 
experience in political affairs, until the various tribes 
have become more homogeneous and more capable of 
getting along peaceably together. It would surely 
be wrong to withdraw our flag without the acceptance 
by the other Powers of treaties guaranteeing their 
freedom. But in many ways the outlook for the 
future of the Islands under their own flag looks prom- 
ising, even now. There is no royal dynasty whose 
members might attempt to recover lost power, there 
are no slaves, there are no vexing boundary questions. 
Many of the Filipinos have proved themselves able 
and honest in business and in politics. Governor 
Harrison, after intimate experience in working with 
them, declared, "I have found the native Filipino 
official to be honest, efficient, and as capable of ad- 
ministering executive positions as any men I have 
met anywhere in the world . . . By temperament, by 
experience, by financial ability, in every way, the ten 



16 LIBERTY 

millions of Filipinos are entitled to be free from 
every government except their own choice . . . They 
are intelligent enough to decide for themselves.'^ 

Even if this picture is too optimistic, if disorder 
and confusion should follow the first attainment of 
their liberty, this is no more than usually happens 
when a new nation is launched, no more than hap- 
pened in our own case. And, after all, it is not for 
us to judge what is best for them; it is their own 
right to decide. 

At the very outset of our rule. President McKinley 
announced that we came as "a liberating rather than 
a conquering nation." "The Philippines are ours, not 
to exploit, but to develop, to civilize, to educate, to 
train in the science of self-government. This is the 
path of duty which we must follow or be recreant 
to a mighty trust committed to us.'^ 

President Roosevelt declared that the honor of the 
United States was pledged to the doctrine of "the 
Philippines for the Filipinos," and caused many steps 
to be taken during his administration increasing the 
measure of self-government accorded to them. 

President Taft, who had been Governor General of 
the Philippines, and knew the situation intimately, 
espoused the same policy: "The Filipino people, 
through their officials, are making real steps in the 
direction of self-government. I hope and believe that 
these steps mark the beginning of a course which will 
continue until the Filipinos become fit to decide for 
themselves whether they desire to be an independent 
nation." 

In recognition of this long-proclaimed principle of 
Americanism, Congress in 1914 pledged the United 
States "to withdraw their sovereignty over the Philip- 
pine Islands and to recognize their independence as 



POLITICAL LIBERTY 17 

soon as a stable government can be established there- 
in/' President Wilson later declared, ^'We must hold 
steadily in view their ultimate independence, and we 
must move toward the time of that independence as 
steadily as the way can be cleared and the foundations 
thoughtfully and permanently reared." 

When this is finally accomplished, it will be another 
rebuke to our cynical critics in the Old World, who 
have distrusted the sincerity of our promises, and a 
relief to those South or Central American republics 
that fear the growth of an imperialistic policy in this 
country. That fear is not without justification, in 
view of the high-handed methods that our officials 
have sometimes used, in Santo Domingo and Haiti, 
in Nicaragua and other neighboring republics. But, 
however autocratic our officials may at times be, and 
however unjust some individual act, there can be no 
possible doubt that Americans will loyally maintain 
in eveiy case their right to national independence. 

It may, indeed, be asked why, believing as we do 
in self-determination, the North refused to the South 
the right to secede, in 1860. And at once we must ad- 
mit that the ideal of Liberty often conflicts with that 
other great ideal of Union which we shall presently 
discuss. At this point we may be content to point 
out that North and South were essentially one peo- 
ple, one in language and political experience, in es- 
sential traditions and beliefs — except for the issue 
of slavery — as well as in race. The case was very 
different from that of an alien race in far-off islands, 
or even from that of the democratic American colon- 
ists and their monarchical rulers across the ocean. 
The advantages of union and disadvantages of separa- 
tion were immeasurably greater. And further, the 
case was heavily complicated by the fact that the 



18 LIBERTY 

South wanted secession in order to perpetuate slavery. 
That is, the ideal of Liberty itself fought against them. 
The present complete and happy reunion of North 
and South and the eminence that the united nation has 
attained, purged of sectionalism and of slavery, testi- 
fies that although both sides fought for genuine ideals, 
the ideal of the North was the higher. 

Our nation will tolerate no disintegration of its 
own unity. But it will maintain, to the last drop 
of its blood, its right to its own national liberty. And 
it will maintain an equal liberty as the birthright of 
every other people, the weakest as well as the strong- 
est, yellow, black and brown as well as white. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

The Declaration of Independence. 

Patrick Henry, Liberty Speech. 

Daniel Webster, Oration on Adams and Jefferson. (Both of 
these reprinted in Foerster and Pierson, op. cit.) 

Woodrow Wilson, Address to the Senate, Jan. 22, 1917. (Re- 
printed in Why We are at War, and in Foerster and 
Pierson, p. 233.) 

F. M. Gregg, The Founding of a Nation. 

L. R. Heller, ed.. Early American Orations. 

P. M. Brown, International Realities, Chap. II. 

M. M. Kalaw, Self -Government in the Philippines. 

F. N. Thorpe, History of the American People, Chapters 
XIV-XV. 

R. L. Ashley, The American Federal State, Part I. 

M. C. Tyler, The Declaration of Independence in the Light of 

Modern Criticism, North American Review, vol. 163, p. 1. 

(Reprinted in Fulton, op. cit., p. 158.) 
H. Fielding-Hall, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. Ill, p. 577. 
Bernard Moses, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. Ill, p. 585. 

G. F. Barbour, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 24, p. 1. 



CHAPTER III 

CIVIL LIBERTY 

The liberty of a nation, as a nation, to choose its own 
rulers and policies is a precious right. But the ab- 
sence of such independence does not necessarily mean 
any loss save a sentimental one to the people thereof. 
A colony governed by a wise mother-country may well 
have more security and attain a higher civilization 
than would have been possible if it had stood on its 
own feet. Indeed, where agitation arises for political 
independence it is usually because of violations of the 
civil liberties of the people. So it was in the case of 
America. 

The civil rights which were more or less explicitly 
asserted by the Declaration of Independence and the 
Constitution include : 

(1) Liberty of person. No one to be deprived of 
life or freedom of movement except by due 
process of law. No one to be made a slave or 
serf. No one to be arrested or imprisoned 
without a warrant. 

(2) Security of property. No one to be deprived 
of anything that he owns except by due process 
of law. 

(3) Freedom of belief and worship, of speech, and 
of the printed word. 

(4) Freedom from needless restrictions and tyran- 
nies by the law, even when approved by the 
majority. Personal affairs to be interfered 

19 



20 LIBERTY 

with only in so far as is necessary for the 
common good. 
(5) Freedom from a tyrannical public opinion. No 
one to be persecuted or ostracized because he 
acts or lives in a different way from that ap- 
proved by the majority. 
No people, perhaps, have ever been so sensitive to 
encroachments upon personal liberty as ours. This 
passionate libertarianism had one of its roots in the 
Calvinism of the Puritans. According to that highly 
individualistic faith, every man was directly responsi- 
ble to God ; the State had no authority over him com- 
parable to that of his creed and conscience. Another 
root was the sturdy self-reliance fostered by pioneer 
life. An unusual number of men in this country have 
been "self-made" men, men who carved their own for- 
tunes and asked nothing better than to be left free to 
do so. Still another source lay in the past experience 
of the early settlers, and indeed of many later immi- 
grants, which made them distrust all government as 
being naturally tyrannical. The fear lest the repub- 
lican form of government which they set up would be 
captured by ambitious men and usurp too great power 
lies behind many of the clauses of the Constitution 
and persisted long as a bugaboo in the thought of 
American statesmen. Emerson expressed this ideal 
and this fear in his well-known lines, 

"Fo,r what avail the plough or sail 
Or land or life, if freedom fail ?" 

The glaring inconsistency in a people that sing of 
their country as the "sweet land of liberty" was, of 
course, the toleration of negro slavery. Almost every- 
one took for granted the rightfulness of this long- 
established institution. Christian ministers as well as 



CIVIL LIBERTY 21 

worldly-minded, those who lived in the industrial 
sections of the North as well as the plantation-owners 
of the South who profited, or thought they profited, 
thereby. But the clash between ideal and practice 
was inevitable ; personal liberty could not forever be 
worshipped as the highest good and at the same time 
denied to a large section of the population. One by 
one conscientious men awoke to the inconsistency. 
In 1830 Garrison wrote, "I shall strenuously contend 
for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave popu- 
lation. ... On this subject I do not wish to think, 
or speak, or write, with moderation. I am in earnest 
— I will not equivocate — I will not retreat a single 
inch — and I will be heard!" Later, when the South 
demanded its independence in order to ensure the per- 
petuation of slavery, Lincoln said the final word: 
"They who deny freedom to others deserve it not for 
themselves." 

The Civil War decided the issue, and removed for 
all time this blot from our escutcheon. The great 
hymn that fired the hearts of the Union soldiers made 
its appeal to this elemental passion : 

"As He died to make men holy, let us die to make them free." 

Freedom, in this case, required a long and terrible 
war to secure. It often requires elaborate and some- 
times apparently tyrannical laws to maintain. The 
old naive notion that if the government would but 
keep its hands off, every one would have the greatest 
amount of liberty has long been known to be falla- 
cious ; bitter experience has shown that such a laissez- 
faire policy allows the strong and unscrupulous to 
prey upon the conscientious and the weak. We must 
have a considerable body of law in order to have the 
greatest attainable amount of liberty for all. As 



22 LIBERTY 

President Wilson recently wrote, "If Jefferson had 
lived in our day he would see what we see, that the in- 
dividual is caught in a great confused mix-up of all 
sorts of complicated circumstances, and that to let 
him alone is to leave him helpless as against the ob- 
stacles with which he has to contend." 

Many people suppose that because a man has legal 
freedom he is really free. But, in the words of a great 
English jurist, "Necessitous men are not free men.'^ 
In the pioneer days, a laissez-faire policy was far 
less inadequate than now. The transition from small- 
scale to large-scale industry, from personal direction 
of business to corporate control, the crowding of 
great masses of people in cities, the complexification 
of our social and political order, have forced all sorts 
of new relationships upon us that require legislative 
control if they are not to be allowed to curtail seri- 
ously the liberty of many. 

The British Labor Party has advertised the phrase, 
"effective personal freedom,'^ meaning thereby such 
freedom as can actually be taken advantage of. A 
recent American writer elaborates this conception as 
follows : "If you drive a man up a tree and station a 
bear at the foot of it, it does not gratify him to be told 
that he is now free to do as he chooses. If you dismiss 
your son from your door without food, money or edu- 
cation, and tell him that the whole wide world is now 
open to him, you have not given him ^effective per- 
sonal freedom.' Circumstances may compel him to 
accept your terms, hard and dictatorial though they 
may be. Freedom in such a sense is a threat and not 
a promise. Similarly if you rear a man in a low social 
station, in the midst of poverty and ignorance, with 
the necessity of livelihood forced upon him from an 
early age, and then tell him that he may rise even 



CIVIL LIBEETY 23 

to be President of the United States, he is to be for- 
given if he does not appear enthusiastic and grateful. 
If you throw a man into stormy waters far from land, 
and then tell him that there is nothing to prevent his 
swimming to shore and making a nice dry warm place 
for himself there, you do not confer a boon on him. 
For first he has got to keep his head above water. 
Even if by great and prolonged exertions he can do 
that, there is little chance of his living to achieve 
more. The man who demands ^effective personal 
freedom' wants to be put on shore to start with. He 
understands that there is a tyranny of circumstance 
more fatal than that of man." 

Our love of liberty, our hatred of the regulation of 
our conduct by any authority other than God and our 
individual conscience, has made it difficult for any 
form of socialism to win favor with us. We distrust 
a bureaucracy, we dread paternalism ; our forefathers 
deliberately sought to restrict the powers of the gov- 
ernment, to allow the widest possible scope for private 
initiative. As Professor Mecklin says, ^^The measure 
of an efficient government at the beginning of the na- 
tional life was the least possible interference with the 
affairs of the individual, in fact, just enough of govern- 
ment to facilitate individual ends. Government was 
at best merely the policeman to keep order and protect 
property." Doubtless a great many of our immigrants 
came to these shores to get away from the restrictions 
upon their personal liberty in their homelands; and 
we must continue our vigilance in preventing the 
growth of needless impediments to freedom in our 
own land. 

But on the other hand, we have learned that one 
man or group of men may abuse their liberty in such 
a way as to interfere with the liberty of others. As 



M LIBERTY 

Mr. H. G. Wells says of his country, "We must get rid 
of these spendthrift liberties that waste liberty." 
Liberty and law are not contradictories; law is the 
servant of liberty, the means to its attainment. We 
may well fear a corrupt government, oppose class 
legislation, fight the many bills offered to further 
this or that special interest. But a genuinely demo- 
cratic government is simply the expression of the 
common will — our will. For we, after all, are the 
State; and what we collectively decide upon as best 
for the general welfare is not tyranny but self-expres- 
sion. 

Those who fare well under existing conditions usu- 
ally raise the cry "Hands off!'' when legislation is 
proposed that would restrain their conduct in any 
way. They fail to realize that restraint upon unsocial 
conduct is necessary precisely in the interests of lib- 
erty — the liberty of the greatest number. A manu- 
facturer resents a law restricting child-labor; his 
liberty to employ whom he will is infringed. But 
that liberty was a predatory liberty ; it lived at the ex- 
pense of the far more precious liberty of those children 
to have their playtime, their schooling, their health. 
Or a group of mill-owners may insist upon their lib- 
erty to shut down their mills in order to lessen pro- 
duction and raise the price of their product, ignoring 
the fact that they thereby would deprive thousands of 
men of the liberty to work and earn their living, and 
their families of all the liberty that a decent income 
alone makes possible. 

In general, we have been far too blind to the true 
implications of the ideal of Liberty, which we so 
highly prize in the abstract. We have been too toler- 
ant of the exploiters, the grafters, those whose clever- 
ness or good fortune has enabled them to grab for 



CIVIL LIBERTY 25 

themselves rights and privileges which ought to have 
been our common inheritance. The old notion that if 
everybody ^^looks after number one" the general good 
will automatically be attained must give way to the 
verdict of bitter experience, that to preserve the rights 
and liberties of everybody , clever and stupid, fortun- 
ate and unfortunate, requires the unceasing watchful- 
ness of the law. 

In pursuance of this wiser view we now forbid 
householders to empty their refuse into the streets, 
as was done in some of our cities a generation ago; 
we no longer tolerate the existence of private toll- 
gates upon the highways ; we interfere in a hundred 
ways with the conduct of private business, with the 
erection of private homes, with personal habits, such 
as gambling, drinking intoxicating beverages, and 
using narcotic drugs. Now and then, of course, an 
unwarrantable law is passed. But in general, this 
extension of legislative vigilance is in the interests of 
true liberty. And the average man of today is far 
freer from dangers, from fears, from the encroach- 
ments and aggressions of other men, and from the 
fatal effects of his own shortsightedness, selfishness 
or passion, than was the man of older days. 

The ideal of Liberty is that every one should be 
unhampered in his conduct except as that conduct 
would interfere with the welfare of others ; or rather, 
that every man should be helped to make his conduct 
a positive contribution to the common welfare. We 
need to think of Liberty in terms of the group. We 
do not want the docility and blind obedience to a State 
ruled by an upper-class, of pre-war Germany ; we want 
to preserve the individual initiative and energy for 
which we are famous. But we want to exercise our 
collective intelligence in guiding that initiative and 



26 LIBERTY 

energy into social rather than unsocial channels; we 
want to use the inventiveness and ingenuity of the few 
not so much for the winning for them personally a 
freer and more expansive life, as for the winning of 
such a larger and freer life for the people as a whole. 
Not every man for himself, but every man for America. 
Not liberty for you, or for me, at the expense of others, 
but such mutual adjustments and restraints as will 
make for the greatest liberty of all. 

The same problem that faces us here, in the relation 
of the individual to the community, has been met and 
in some degree solved in the relation of the several 
States to the Nation. In the name of liberty the 
various attempts of the people as a whole, through 
the national Congress, to regulate matters of national 
concern have been strenuously opposed. The Civil 
War silenced for all time the doctrine that the rights 
of the individual States transcend the rights of the 
Nation; and we have a steadily increasing body of 
federal statutes. But we still find it impossible to 
regulate child-labor nationally, save in a roundabout 
and partial manner; some States refuse to give up 
their right to exploit the health of their children. We 
find it difficult to regulate the killing of even the 
migratory song-birds ; some States resent interference 
with the right of their citizens to make pot-pies out of 
robins and bobolinks. A Constitutional Amendment 
has been necessary to bring certain backward States 
to relinquish their right to refuse the ballot to women. 

The separate States must not be allowed in their 
supposed self-interest to block the way toward the 
freest and happiest life for the people as a whole; 
that principle has been definitely decided, although 
its full application will long give rise to debate and 
disagreement. Similarly, no individual or group of 



CIVIL LIBEKTY 27 

individuals, no corporation, or "interest," mnst be 
allowed to block the way toward the freest and hap- 
piest life for the people as a whole. We must not let 
the reaction from war-restraints bring us back to the 
easy-going tolerance of personal and corporate selfish- 
ness into which we had drifted. The energies of the 
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were neces- 
sarily taken up with the winning of the rights of 
peoples as opposed to tyrannous governments. The 
latter part of the nineteenth centuiy and the twen- 
tieth century have had to add to this task that of pre- 
venting these rights from becoming the perquisite 
of the strong and the fortunate among the people, and 
ensuring them for the people as a whole. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

The Constitution of the United States of America. 

C. M. Gayley, Shahspere and the Founders of Liberty in 
America. (An excerpt from this is reprinted in Fulton, 
op. cit., p. 152. See also the extract from F. H. Giddings, 
p. 191.) 

J. S. Mill, On Liberty. 

J. H. Tufts, Our Democracy, Its Origins and its Tasks, Chap- 
ters XI-XYII. 

Bertrand Kussell, Why Men Fight, Chapter II. (Also in 
Atlantic Monthly, vol. 120, p. 112.) 

E. S. P. Haynes, The Case for Liberty. 

John Burroughs, The Light of Day, Chapter XIII. 

C. S. Cooper, American Ideals, Chapter VII. 

A. T. Hadley, Freedom and Responsibility. 

J. W. Burgess, The Reconciliation of Government with Liberty. 

H. J. Laski, Authority in the Modern State. 

Publications of the American Civil Liberties Union, 138 W. 
13th Street, New York, N. Y. 



CHAPTER IV 

CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTIES 

In the preceding cliapter we have seen that liberty is 
preserved only through law. To this end we have the 
common law — the great mass of precedents to be found 
in earlier decisions, the State and National laws, and 
the State and National Constitutions. Of these, the 
written constitution is the distinctively American 
contribution, and deserves our special attention. 

The fundamental purpose of written constitutions 
is to prevent majorities from tyrannizing over minori- 
ties — for the tyranny of Demos may be as crushing as 
that of an oligarchy. This restraining power is exer- 
cised in two ways. In the first place, a larger than 
majority vote is usually necessary to amend a consti- 
tution ; often the process is an involved and difficult 
one. In the second place, the rights guaranteed by 
a constitution have such prestige that even a majority 
would be apt to be wary of annulling them. 

This, then, is the chief guaranty of our civil liber- 
ties. Legislatures can not limit the rights asserted 
by the State and Federal Constitutions, or executives 
ignore them — unless the people lose their vigilance 
and acquiesce in their violation. Jefferson in his 
Inaugural Address, in 1801, expressed the heart of 
the matter: ^^All too will bear in mind this sacred 
principle, that though the will of the majority is in 
all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful must be 
reasonable; that the minority possess their equal 

28 



CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTIES 29 

rights which equal laws must protect, and to violate 
which would be oppressive.'^ In short, the individual 
has certain rights that not even the elected represen- 
tatives of the people have the right to destroy. Our 
government is one that is controlled not only by the 
views of the officials and legislators temporarily in 
office, but, fundamentally, by principles passed on 
from generation to generation and subject only to a 
purposely rather remote possibility of alteration. 

An essential feature of this plan is that the meaning 
of these Constitutions is to be determined not by the 
legislatures^ — which then might declare their laws 
proper, against whatever outcry — but by a non-law- 
making arm of the government, the Courts. As a 
matter of fact, the action of State legislatures has thus 
been declared unconstitutional some hundreds of 
times; and more than a score of times the Supreme 
Court has annulled a law passed by Congress. 

To many Americans, and perhaps to most foreign- 
ers, this power of our courts seems too great. M. 
Rodrigues, a Frenck admirer of our people, calls it 
^^a dreadful obligation, an exorbitant power, if ever 
there was one. The judge is the judge not only of 
cases, but of laws; he is the judge not only of parties 
but of legislators!" Mr. Walter Weyl, in The New 
Democracy^ likewise declares that "this right of the 
Supreme Court finally and unreviewably to declare a 
law void, in opposition to the opinion of a majority, 
constitutes, in the absence of ample facilities for a 
popular amendment of the Constitution, a flat and 
uncompromising negation of democracy." 

This situation deserves careful attention. Here 
is an institution conceived by our fathers for the 
purpose of checking legislation oppressive of the fun- 
damental rights of any class or individual, now re- 



30 LIBEETY 

garded by many acute obseryers as a grievous clog 
upon needed social refonns. 

The problem is, first, as to the facts, and then as to 
the proper policy. 

John Marshall, the first Chief Justice of the Federal 
Supreme Court, maintained the view that the Consti- 
tution is to be interpreted in such wise as to make 
for the truest welfare of the people, rather than in a 
spirit of technicality and literalism. Many of his 
successors were animated by this same liberal spirit, 
which may fairly be called the historic American tra- 
dition in the matter. It was expressed by Roosevelt 
in 1912, when he wrote, ^'My plea is that the courts 
act with ordinary statesmanship, ordinary regard for 
the Constitution as a living aid to growth, not as a 
strait-jacket.'^ 

It must be admitted, however, that on many occa- 
sions during the past century the exercise of this con- 
stitutional veto by the courts has actually blocked 
needed legislation and been a bulwark of special 
privilege. To cite a few out of many cases: The 
Federal Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a 
New York State law limiting the hours of work in 
bake-shops, on the ground that it deprived the em- 
ployees of their personal liberty to work as long as 
they chose. This in spite of the fact that a large 
proportion of the bake-shops were underground, and 
unhygienic, that the health of many employees had 
been ruined by the long hours of work required of 
them in such surroundings, and that the law which 
had been passed was their only prospect of prompt 
relief from the intolerable conditions. What the em- 
ployees wanted was to be able to work a reasonable 
number of hours and still retain their positions. That 
would have been for them a real increase in liberty. 



CONSTITUTIONAL GUAKANTIES 31 

Yet the right of the legislature to procure for them 
that liberty was denied by the courts on the ground of 
a purely theoretical liberty which no one, or almost 
no one, wanted to exercise; a liberty which simply 
gave the owners of the bake-shops the right to make 
big profits through the overwork of their employees. 

Similarly, the New York State Court of Appeals 
declared unconstitutional a State law prohibiting the 
making of cigars in tenements, on the ground that 
this law interfered with personal liberty and private 
property; it forced the worker "from his home and 
its hallowed associations and beneficent influences!'* 
The situation was that the employers were saving 
money through being able to go without a factoiy, 
while the workers were injuring their health through 
overlong hours of working — made necessary by the 
unregulated competition and very low pay per hour; 
little children, aged and sick people were kept at work, 
to add to the family income, and the health of both 
workers and the consumers was seriously endangered. 
It is universally admitted by students of social condi- 
tions that tenement-industries are a menace to the 
community. And these industries received a new lease 
of life by this widely advertised decision of the Court. 
Mrs. Florence Kelley, one of the ablest of our social 
workers, wrote in 1905, that if the new State law had 
been upheld instead of being annulled, "it is safe to as- 
sert that the odious system of tenement manufacture 
would long ago have perished in every trade in every 
city in the Republic.'' 

The Illinois Supreme Court, in 1886 and subsequent 
years, annulled acts of the State legislature requiring 
mine-owners to weigh the coal mined and pay the 
miners on the basis of such weight. In 1892 and 1904, 
it held as void legislative acts regulating the keeping 



32 LIBERTY 

of truck stores by the owners of coal mines and fac- 
tories. In 1900, it anulled a law prohibiting the use 
of the American flag for advertising purpose® ; in 1901, 
an act prohibiting more than six persons from sleeping 
in one room in a lodging-house; in 1906, an act re- 
quiring owners of mines to provide a washroom at the 
top of the mine for the use of the miners ; in 1909, an 
act regulating the practice of assigning future wages 
as security for borrowed money by requiring the 
assignment to be signed by the wife of a married man 
and recorded. 

These cases, cited out of a great number, make it 
clear that the passing of desirable reform measures 
has often been blocked by the Courts. And a very 
great number of other reforms have been postponed, 
or are still impossible of achievement, because it is 
recognized that the courts would annul them. Our 
constitutions are so difficult of amendment that this 
veto power of the courts is usually decisive. We are 
the only great nation that handicaps progressive legis- 
lation in this way. And it is generally conceded that 
we are behind most of the more civilized nations in 
our social-welfare legislation. 

In particular, the cause of labor has often suffered 
from the exercise of judicial interpretation. It is 
scarcely to be wondered at that delegates of labor con- 
ventions often declare that they have lost all hope in 
legal procedure and want to try lawless methods for 
ameliorating the lot of the laboring classes. The 
Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, 
which declares that property must not be taken with- 
out due process of law, has been used over and over 
again by judges to justify the annulment of laws 
passed by legislatures and desired by the people. The 
result is that property rights have been given in this 



CONSTITUTIONAL GUAKANTIES 33 

countiy a more protected status than anywhere else 
in the world, and often ranked above what we call 
human rights. So much use has been made of that 
Fourteenth Amendment that it has been specifically 
proposed that whenever an act is passed by two differ- 
ent sessions of a legislature, and approved by the 
electorate upon a referendum, it shall be held not to 
infringe the ^'life, liberty, and property" clause in 
that amendment. 

The reasons for this obstructionist attitude of some 
of our courts must be sought in the training that 
judges receive. The law schools have trained their 
students rather in a legalist, backward-looking tem- 
per, than in a constructive, forward-looking spirit. 
One of the judges of the Federal Supreme Court has 
written, 'The training of lawyers is a training in 
logic . . . The logical method and form flatter that 
longing for certainty and for repose which is in every 
human mind. But certainty generally is illusion, 
and repose is not the destiny of man. Behind the log- 
ical form lies a judgment as to the relative worth and 
importance of competing legislative grounds, often 
an inarticulate and unconscious judgment, it is true, 
and yet the very root and nerve of the whole proceed- 
ing. ... To measure them justly needs not only the 
amplest powers of a judge and a training which the 
practice of the law does not insure, but also a freedom 
from prepossessions which is veiy hard to attain. It 
seems to me desirable that the work should be done 
with express recognition of its nature.'' 

In short, the courts have been taking upon them- 
selves what is not merely an interpretative but a 
political function. But they are made up not of rep- 
resentatives of all classes, but solely of lawyers, who 
almost inevitably come to have the property point of 



34 LIBERTY 

view. Their work lies largely in the sphere of the en- 
forcement of property interests. They do not con- 
sciously mean to be servants of organized property 
interests, but their unconscious prejudices make them 
often its ready tools. 

To realize to what extent the supposedly interpre- 
tative function of the courts is actually determinative, 
we have but to read the opinions of the dissenting 
judges, which are usually the most drastic criticisms 
of the majority decisions, and show how far the social 
philosophy of the judges colors their arguments. A 
legal foundation can be brought up for almost any 
decision, through the selection of the precedents to be 
followed. A student of the law has recently declared 
that ^^there are so many principles and precedents run- 
ning in different directions, that a judge can generally 
find some principle, precedent, or construction to 
justify in legal form the conclusion he has arrived at 
on the facts . . . With the courts of forty-six States 
and several English-speaking jurisdictions handing 
down decisions at the rate of several hundred bulky 
volumes every year, it is not difficult to find authority 
and reason for almost any practicable view ; and even 
when certain precedents seem to stand in the way of 
the judgment the court would like to render, these 
can often be distinguished from the case at bar by 
some slight difference, or perhaps quite marked and 
vital difference in the facts and circumstances." 

For example, the majority of the Massachusetts Su- 
preme Court recently stated the opinion that the 
legislature could not legally give authority to the 
cities of the State to establish municipal coal and 
wood yards, for the purpose of providing their citizens 
with fuel at a reasonable price. The ground for this 
decision lay in the fact that the judges thought it 



CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTIES 35 

would be an unwise thing for municipalities to go 
into such business and that it would open the way 
for further "socialistic" enterprises. But Mr. Justice 
Holmes (now a member of the Federal Supreme 
Court) dissented vigorously from this view, declaring 
that "when money is taken to enable a public body to 
offer to the public without discrimination an article 
of general necessity, the purpose is not less public 
when that article is wood or coal than when it isi 
water or gas or electricity or education, to say nothing 
of cases like the support of paupers, or the taking of 
land for railroads or public markets." 

In this case the fact that a majority of the judges 
were unfavorably disposed, owing to their social class 
or education or thought, to the extension of munic- 
ipal activity, led them to block legislation which a 
majority of Mr. Holmes' type would have passed as 
legitimate. It can clearly be seen that the political 
and social temper of our judges may well be a more 
serious matter than that of our legislators and execu- 
tives; and, in our system, the judges have the last 
word. Even though there be a large popular majority 
in favor of a law, and a majority in the Congress or 
State legislature, and even though the welfare of the 
people, as well as their will, is embodied in the law, 
the courts can keep it off the statute-books. 

Do we wish to allow the courts this right to obstruct 
the will of the people? Certainly, if we allow them 
to retain it, we must be free to criticize their action 
when we disapprove it. Time has shown that not a 
few court decisions have been undesirable. Our 
greatest American, Abraham Lincoln, felt free to 
condemn the action of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. Of the Dred Scott decision he said, 
"we think this decision erroneous. We know that 



36 LIB1ERTY 

the court that made it has often overruled its own 
decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it 
overrule this ... I do not resist it . . . We abide 
by the decision, but we will try to reverse that 
decision.'^ 

Similarly, Theodore Koosevelt criticized the New 
York State Bakeshop decision, above described: 
"The Supreme Court of the United States possessed, 
and unfortunately exercised, the negative power of 
not permitting the above to be remedied. By a five- 
to-four vote they declared the action of the State of 
New York unconstitutional, because, forsooth, men 
must not be deprived of their ^liberty' to work under 
unhealthy conditions . . . The Court was, of course, 
absolutely powerless to make the remotest attempt 
to provide a remedy for the wrong which undoubt- 
edly existed, and its refusal to permit action by the 
State did not confer any power upon the nation to 
act. The decision was nominally against states' 
rights, but really against popular rights.'' 

Shall we go further than to bring the pressure of 
public opinion to bear upon the judiciary? Many 
publicists have advocated the "recall" of judges whose 
interpretations run contrary to the majority will. 
Without going so far as this, we might propose, as 
Roosevelt did, the "recall of judicial decisions," i.e., 
a referendum which would let the people decide 
whether, in a given case, they wished to uphold or to 
annul the interpretation of the court. This plan 
seems preferable to the recall of the judge himself, 
since the fear of losing his office might tend to make 
a judge too sensitive to public opinion. The inde- 
pendence of the judiciary is a valuable asset in a 
democracy. Yet where the recall of judges has been 
available it has been used with moderation and wis- 



CONSTITUTIONAL GUAKANTIES 37 

dom ; and it is not to be forgotten that it is a possible 
last resort. 

Again, it would be possible to take from the 
judiciaiy its power of constitutional veto and give 
the Congress and State legislatures the power to 
determine the constitutionality of their own acts, 
with, perhaps, a popular referendum when desired 
by a sufficient number of people. This, however, 
would be a sharp break with our traditions. And it 
is highly questionable whether this taking off the 
brakes would not encourage hasty and extremist 
legislation, and do more harm than good. We are a 
conservative nation, and will not lightly abrogate, 
because of the dangers that inhere in it, a policy that 
has appealed to most Americans as, on the whole, rea- 
sonable and wise. 

Perhaps the best solution, on the whole, will be to 
leave the Courts their power, and to make the process 
of amending Constitutions somewhat easier. Thomas 
Jefferson wished that constitutions might be deliber- 
ately revised every nineteen years. Attempts are 
periodically made thoroughly to revise antiquated 
State constitutions; but because of the clumsy pro- 
cedure involved, they rarely achieve a marked success. 

However, the passing of the eighteenth and nine- 
teenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution 
shows that instrument to be still plastic to the popu- 
lar will. And incidental changes are constantly 
being made in State constitutions. When a court, 
through its interpretation of constitutional provi- 
sions, blocks a generally desired law, an alteration 
in the Constitution can be made, if enough people 
want it. And although this process has hitherto been 
often heartbreakingly slow, and although judges are 
sometimes sadly lacking in social vision and prone 



38 LIBERTY 

to give a narrowly legalistic interpretation, one that 
concerns itself more with property rights than with 
human rights, yet the idea behind this Constitu- 
tional barrier is a sound one. It comes down to a 
question of political policy. Do we need checks upon 
over-hasty legislative action? Or do we need rather 
to progress more freely than our constitutional bar- 
riers permit? 

The ideal is undoubtedly that expressed by Dr. 
Lyman Abbott: ^The Constitution is not like the 
hoops of a barrel that hold the staves together . . . 
It is like the bark of a tree that grows with the growth 
of the tree and expands with its expansion." If we 
can keep our Constitution as flexible as this analogy 
suggests, we can, if we choose, repeal or amend 
clauses in it that come to be interpreted by the 
Courts in a manner contrary to the popular will. 
New laws can then be passed that will not be subject 
to annulment, at least on the old grounds. In this 
manner we may unite caution with experimentation, 
a wise conservatism with a progressive regard for 
human needs and interests. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

F. J. Goodnow, Social Reform and the Constitution. 

Frank Parsons, Legal Doctrine and Social Progress, Chap. IV. 
H. M. Kales, Unpopular Government in the United States, 
Chapters XVI, XVII. 

G. G. Groat, The Attitude of American Courts in Labor Cases. 
L. P. Edie, Current Social and Industrial Forces, pp. 223-229. 
T. M. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations, seventh ed. 
Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism: Criticism of the 

Courts. 
J. H. Tufts, Our Democracy, Chapter XXVI. 
Brooks Adams, The Theory of Social Revolutions. 
J. A. Smith, The Spirit of American Government, Chapters 

V, XL 



CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTIES 39 

C. G. Haines, The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy. 
A. L. Hudson, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, p. 679. 
G. W. Alger, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. Ill, p. 345. 
K. T. Frederick, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 46. 
Louis Bartlett, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 126, p. 289. 



CHAPTER V 

INDIVIDUALISM 

We have been discussing certain restrictions upon 
liberty that are necessary for liberty's sake. It is 
by no means true, however, that our only danger lies 
in an unrestricted and heedless individualism. On 
the contrary, there are ways in which we need more 
rather than less individual liberty. 

Much that is best in our national life has come from 
the self-reliance bred by pioneer conditions, the love 
of overcoming obstacles, the zest in what Roosevelt 
named the Strenuous Life. In general, the people 
who left their home-lands and dared the dangers of 
the ocean and of a new country were the bolder, 
hardier folk. They found here abundant opportuni- 
ties for personal initiative. Owing to their diversity 
of race and traditions they were slow in developing a 
"consciousness of kind.'' They wrote their individu- 
alistic creed into their laws and constitutions; their 
writers and poets glorified that fearless and energetic 
individualism and crystallized it into an explicit and 
avowed ideal. 

All this is to the good. Our aim should be, not to 
cramp, but so far as possible to liberate, these indi- 
vidual energies. It is with us an established right 
that each young man and woman shall choose his or 
her vocation, friends, religious faith, home; shall 
carve out an individual life, rather than be sub- 
ject to family dictation or pressure, as is so often 

40 



IOT)IYIDITALISM 41 

the case in Europe. Hundreds of young men every 
year, with little more than their natural talents to 
help them, succeed in carving out a career for them- 
selves and lifting themselves to positions of profit 
and power. And in increasing numbers the young 
women of America are following their example and 
becoming independent individuals, able to support 
themselves and make a distinctive personal contribu- 
tion to the country's life. 

But this individualistic spirit is as yet only par- 
tially developed. In some matters public opinion 
still presses too hard upon the individual, seeking to 
make him conform to generally accepted standards 
of manners and morals, at the expense of the com- 
plete development of his personality. This is partly 
the result of our Puritan tradition, which allowed no 
variation from a supposedly infallible code, and 
partly the instinctive expression of a very widespread 
human attitude, the dislike of conduct that varies 
from our own. 

More serious even than this is the fact that there 
are whole classes of workers who, while being cogs 
in a great industrial or commercial machine, have no 
least share in shaping the conditions of their daily 
work or the policies of the industry they serve. They 
are simply "hands," not human beings, to be ordered 
about, never to be consulted or even listened to; they 
are what the agitators call "wage-slaves." This state 
of things is undesirable, not primarily out of consid- 
eration for abstract justice, but because this stifling 
of individuality narrows unnecessarily the lives of so 
many people, deprives them of zest in their work, and 
deprives the industries of the ideas that would be 
evolved from their participation in their manage- 
ment. Emerson boasted of our people that we are 



42 LIBERTY 

"a nation of individuals.'' But we are in danger of 
becoming, if we have not already become, an upper 
class of individuals controlling the daily life of a 
great mass of laborers who have little opportunity 
to develop their individuality or to express it if it 
were developed. 

The fact seems to be that most of the present 
managers of industry are so confident in their own 
judgment, so afraid of the ignorance or shortsighted- 
ness of the workers whose help they use in carrying 
on the business — in short, so undemocratic in their 
outlook — that they are afraid or unwilling to share 
the responsibility of decision, except perhaps with 
their technical experts or heads of departments. Yet 
where some measure of industrial democracy has been 
tried, the results have usually been salutary, not only 
upon the workers admitted to participation in con- 
trol, in developing their individuality and giving 
them a new interest in life, but in contributing ideas 
of value to the business. As Professor Mecklin says, 
"among the thousands of human beings working like 
bees in a vast plant there are countless precious 
human capacities that lie dormant or are absolutely 
ignored. ^Mute inglorious Miltons,' men with scien- 
tific, artistic, or moral gifts, are forced to fit their 
varied geniuses into one colossal mechanistic scheme 
that knows but one measure of value — earning 
capacity." Some way to develop and utilize these 
latent energies and talents must be devised. 

Curiously enough, in American politics the opposite 
practice rules. Our idea here is that almost anybody 
can fill any position ; we do not demand professional 
training for high political office. As an acute foreign 
observer wrote, some years before the war, "The need 
of specialized experts is not felt ; and the result is aa 



INDIVIDUALISM 43 

ineffective triviality which repels the best men and 
opens wide the door for dishonesty.'^ When Mr. 
Bryan was arguing for free silver he was reported to 
have said that the opinion of all the professors of the 
United States would not affect his opinion in the 
least. And this same distrust of the trained student 
permeates our government. Mayors are elected in 
our great cities who have had no experience in 
managing municipal affairs. Senators are appointed 
to committees with no thought as to their previous 
training in the fields in which those committees must 
prepare legislation. Debates take place continually 
upon the floor of Congress which are ridiculous to 
any one who is a competent student of the matters 
discussed. 

Plainly the ideal, both for politics and for industry, 
is to combine the fullest self-expression for all with 
the utilization of the greatest natural talent that can 
be discovered and the most thorough training that 
can be devised. Every one of age should participate 
in the choice of those who are to govern ; but the peo- 
ple must be educated to realize the value of talent and 
training, so that they will try to choose those who 
will be most competent for the work in hand. Such 
a democracy, encouraging individuality everywhere, 
and bringing the individuals of greatest worth to the 
top, would be infinitely superior both to the easy- 
going "he's-a-good-fellow" of contemporary politics 
and the autocratic control of contemporary industry. 

As a matter of fact, the two realms are not so unlike 
as would appear. Political officials are actually 
chosen for the most part by small groups of poli- 
ticians rather than by any real popular decision; 
the voter is consulted not as to whom he wishes but 
only as to which of two or three he wishes. What we 



44 LIBERTY 

need is a means by which a really popular will can 
be created and expressed, as well in politics as in 
industiy. In the early days of the Republic, when 
both politics and industry were on a small scale, 
there was ample scope for the individuality of any 
one who had ideas to contribute. But the develop- 
ment of our highly complex political and industrial 
machines has throttled the individuality of all but 
the fortunate or clever few who can push their way 
into the inner councils. Many proposals will be dis- 
cussed and tried out before we agree upon the best 
way to restore something like the splendidly demo- 
cratic individualism of the old days. But a clear 
recognition of the partial eclipse of this ideal is half 
the battle for its regaining. 

There is another way in which the free individual- 
ism of our American tradition is in danger of being 
lost. That tradition was voiced by Emerson when 
he wrote, "Why was man born, if not to be a re- 
former, a re-maker of what man has done?" It has 
recently been expressed by a French critic, M. 
Rodrigues, who writes, "The mission of the American 
people is a mission of renascence and renovation." 
The spirit behind the Declaration of Independence 
was the impulse toward free experimentation, toward 
detachment from the past, toward giving free play to 
imagination and thought. The Founders were radi- 
cals, not afraid to voice their radicalism. They wel- 
comed to these shores men of radical opinions, and 
make of our countiy the great political asylum. They 
were not afraid of trying out a new plan of govern- 
ment. The several States became so many experi- 
ment stations in democracy. Change, growth, free 
criticism, progress, were in the air. 

But in these latter years a new timorousness has 



INDIVIDUALISM 45 

appeared in American life. Prosperity has begotten 
contentment, conservatism, the let-well-enough-alone 
attitude. What was radical in the days of the 
Founders is now accepted as a matter of course ; but 
the radical thought of today is branded in some 
quarters as dangerous and deserving of ruthless sup- 
pression. The result is that we are in danger of 
becoming actually the most convention-ridden and 
unprogressive of the great nations. Many modern 
observers have, in fact, given that as their mature 
opinion of American life. Even de Toqueville found 
this tendency to the crystallization of a new conven- 
tionalism; "one would say," he wrote, "that minds 
have all been formed upon the same model in 
America, so exactly do they follow the same routes." 
Matthew Arnold was impressed by the drab uni- 
formity of our civilization and the absence of fresh 
currents of ideas. Lord Bryce, America's most 
sympathetic critic, has written of our cities that 
"their monotony haunts one like a nightmare" ; and, 
again, has pointed out that we have "so few indepen- 
dent schools of opinion." Very recently an acute 
English critic, Mr. Graham Wallas, writing in the 
Atlantic Monthly, declared that American thought 
on social and political matters is "timid and con- 
ventional." 

The fact seems to be that too many of us have come 
to tolerate the wrong kind of individualism and to 
frown upon the right kind. Individualistic activities 
— activities which further private fortunes, at no 
matter whose expense — are acquiesced in, out of a 
sincere belief in the wisdom of leaving the individual 
unhampered no matter how the public is plundered, 
or out of a more or less conscious realization that we 
should like to feather our own nests in the same way 



46 LIBERTY 

if we had the opportunity. But individualistic 
ideals, ideas at variance with the accepted point of 
view, are increasingly the cause of social obloquy and 
persecution. 

It is a serious question whether the tyranny of the 
majority opinion in a democracy may not be as bane- 
ful as the tyranny of an oligarchy. If a reformer to- 
day, a man who is earnestly seeking a juster and hu- 
maner order, ventures to label his vision "socialism'' 
or "communism," he is in danger of jail ; or — if he is 
an alien — of deportation. Even if he does not so label 
it, and if in fact he differs essentially from these ostra- 
cized views, he may none the less have these labels 
bestowed upon him by undiscriminating authorities 
and be equally in danger. It has been said that at 
the conclusion of a war the victor and vanquished 
exchange characteristics. It would actually seem as 
if a breath of Prussianism had been wafted to this 
land that once boasted of its individual liberty. 
Instead of seeking the liberation of new ideas, the 
free development of new ideals, there are many 
Americans today who are deliberately trying to stamp 
out ideas which they consider heterodox or radical, 
and, paradoxically enough, calling themselves in the 
doing it "One hundred per cent Americans!" 

The psychologist can readily understand this reac- 
tionary attitude. "The average brain is naturally 
lazy and tends to take the line of least resistance. 
The mental world of the ordinary man consists of 
beliefs which he has accepted without questioning 
and to which he is firmly attached ; he is instinctively 
hostile to anything which would upset the established 
order of his familiar world. A new idea, inconsistent 
with some of the beliefs which he holds, means the 
necessity of rearranging his mind; and this process 



IOT)IYIDUALISM 47 

is laborious, requiring a painful expenditure of brain- 
energy. To him and his fellows, who form the vast 
majority, new ideas, and opinions which cast doubt 
on established beliefs and institutions, seem evil 
because they are disagreeable. 

^^The repugnance due to the mental laziness is in- 
creased by a positive feeling of fear. The conserva- 
tive instinct hardens into the conservative doctrine 
that the foundations of society are endangered by 
any alterations in the structure. It is only recently 
that men have been abandoning the belief that the 
welfare of a state depends on rigid stability and on 
the preservation of its traditions and institutions 
unchanged. Wherever that belief prevails, novel 
opinions are felt to be dangerous as well as annoying, 
and anyone who asks inconvenient questions about 
the why and the wherefore of accepted principles is 
considered a pestilent person.^' 

The attitude is intelligible, but it is not one hun- 
dred per cent American; it is not one per cent 
American. It is the continual application of new 
ideas that has made possible the great development 
of American business, the great strides of American 
mechanical invention. We need that same current 
of fresh ideas turned upon our political and social 
mechanisms. No doubt there is, and always will be, 
much individual thinking upon public affairs that is 
silly, one-sided, or Utopian, inspired by resentments, 
unfruitful. But even so, it pays to cultivate indi- 
viduality. In the realm of mechanics a hundred 
suggestions are made for one that proves useful. 
Many years of experimenting, and many costly fail- 
ures, preceded the building of the airplane that could 
really fly. So in political matters, it is easy to criti- 
cize and to propose, and it will be a long process to 



48 LIBERTY 

disentangle what is good in the babel of voices from 
what is of no constructive value. But it is only by 
the utmost encouragement of criticism and the wel- 
coming of variant ideas that we can hope to move 
on at all. 

The true American, then, will not attempt to stifle 
discussion by calling it ^^agitation,'' he will not label 
ideas with which he disagrees, however vigorously, as 
^^dangerous" ; instead of focusing his attention upon 
the apparent folly of Utopian schemes he will seek 
to understand the motives that lie behind their con- 
struction and the evils that they are meant to remedy. 
He will realize that from even the wildest radical 
there may be something to learn; he will, therefore, 
look for something suggestive in every man's opinions, 
and glory in that absence of servility to tradition, 
that prevalence of a critical spirit toward our insti- 
tutions, and that fertility of inventive thought, which 
are the best fruits of American individualism. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Sinclair Kennedy, The Pan- Angles, Chap. III. 
R. W. Emerson, Self -Reliance (in Essays, vol. I). 
Warner Fite, Individualism. 

J. M. Mecklin, Introduction to Social Ethics, Chap. III. 
Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom. 

C. W. Eliot, The Conflict between Individualism and Collec- 
tivism in a Democracy. 
Josiah Royce, The Philosophy of Loyalty, Chap. II. 
Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, pp. 403-408. 
W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, Chap. IV. 
J. A. Smith, The Spirit of American Government, Chap. XII. 
J. W. Burgess, The Reconciliation of Government with Liberty. 
C. E. Merriam, American Political Ideas, Chapters XI, XII. 
Fabian Franklin, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 120, p. 270. 
H. C. Brown, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 26, p. 177. 
A. K. Rogers, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 26, p. 323. 
Y. S. Yarros, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 29, p. 405. 
E. A. Ross, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 30, p. 58. 



CHAPTER VI 

FREE SPEECH 

Most precious, perhaps, of the forms of freedom on 
these shores has been the freedom of belief and of 
public utterance. This has been conspicuously true 
in the field of religion. We know that the Pilgrims 
came hither for "freedom to worship God." So it 
was with the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, the 
Huguenots, the Quakers, and many others. 

True, religious freedom for these early immigrants 
meant merely the right to hold their views, not the 
right to hold anp views. Roger Williams, a heretic 
among these heretics, was persecuted almost as 
fiercely as he would have been in the Old World. 
Through his efforts, however, together with the gen- 
erous spirit of Lord Baltimore and William Penn 
and their followers, farther south, the principle was 
gradually accepted that the Government should not 
meddle with religion at all, and that every one should 
be free to live by the dictates of his own conscience. 

This ideal of liberty of conscience, so early devel- 
oped in America, is one of our most distinctive con- 
tributions to civilization. Nathaniel Shaler once 
declared it "the most unique accomplishment of our 
people.'' In its application to religion it was em- 
bodied in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 2, 
1776 : "All men are equally entitled to the free 
exercise of religion, according to the dictates of 
conscience." The Constitution of the United States 

49 



60 LIBEKTY 

forbade the use of any religious test as a qualification 
for office, and the First Amendment declared that 
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establish- 
ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof.'^ 

This tolerant attitude has been universally ac- 
cepted in America. All churches are protected, none 
is to have political control. No sectarian teaching is 
to be allowed in the public schools. No individual is 
to suffer disabilities of any sort because of his reli- 
gious beliefs or disbeliefs. As Roosevelt wrote, in his 
American Ideals^ "We maintain that it is an outrage, 
in voting for a man for any position, whether state 
or national, to take into account his religious faith, 
provided only he is a good American." 

This does not mean that we are an irreligious peo- 
ple. On the contrary, religion flourishes most vigor- 
ously where it is free. Political control is never in 
this country to be used to push any one Church ; and 
conversely, the power of the Church is never to be 
used to sustain a particular political regime or a 
privileged social class. But this very divorce of reli- 
gion from politics means a relaxation of sectarian 
animosities, an emphasis upon what the religious 
movements have in common, a growth in mutual re- 
spect, which may eventuate in the union of all men of 
good will in the common, unending war against evil. 

The ideal of individual liberty is still incompletely 
realized while the thought of the various churches is 
pocketed, each group reading its own denominational 
literature and living an intellectual and spiritual life 
of its own. What we need, for the fulfilment of our 
ideal, is the interflowing of these varied currents of 
thought, the growth out of them of something larger 
and more inclusive. We must work to the end 



FEEE SPEECH 51 

that, as Dr. Stanton Coit puts it, "the thoughts and 
feelings on religious subjects of all individuals in a 
nation shall, like the thoughts and feelings in one 
single brain, be allowed unimpeded interaction and 
shall constitute one unified and common fund to 
which each person shall have access/' 

However far we may be as yet from this ideal, the 
fight for perfect freedom of belief and utterance in 
the religious sphere has been definitely won. In the 
political and economic sphere, on the contrary, there 
has been recently a reactionary movement, engen- 
dered by war-psychology and by the sight of revolu- 
tionary chaos abroad, toward the restriction of these 
elemental rights. Perhaps we may say that freedom 
of speech in religious matters is unquestioned today 
largely because people do not take religious differ- 
ences so seriously as they did; they no longer think 
that a person will be damned if he has heretical ideas. 
But they do take differences of economic doctrine 
seriously; they fear the destruction of society if any 
radical reorganization of the industrial structure is 
openly advocated. Or perhaps they fear mainly the 
restriction of their own privileges and the limitation 
of their own income. In any case, their dread of eco- 
nomic innovation is so great that it seems to them 
necessary to curb the time-honored freedom of belief 
and speech of which America has always been so 
proud. 

Consider, for example, the following facts. During 
the past few years permits for speeches in halls and 
out-of-doors have been repeatedly refused to people 
suspected of radical ideas — ^including Christian min- 
isters of high reputation, professors in theological 
schools, editors of reputable journals, and labor lead- 
ers of unquestioned personal character. Meetings 



52 LIBEETY 

gathered to listen to speakers obnoxious to the 
authorities have been roughly broken up and the 
speakers forcibly ejected. Not only have the mails 
been closed to specific issues of various newspapers 
and journals, but the second-class mailing privilege 
has been refused altogether to certain periodicals — 
the result being, in some cases, to put an end to their 
publication. Books and pamphlets containing pass- 
ages disapproved by the authorities have likewise 
been declared unmailable. 

Further, raids have been conducted by the Govern- 
ment against schools, clubs, workingmen's associa- 
tions, political party headquarters ; all persons on the 
premises have been indiscriminately arrested, regard- 
less of the absence of specific evidence as to their 
beliefs or utterances. Property has been seized and 
held without warrant. Great numbers of people have 
been arrested and sent to jail without warrant. Spies 
and underground agents have been used by the whole- 
sale to disclose to the Government the names of per- 
sons and organizations professing radical ideas. In 
many cases, the "radical" ideas for which men have 
been jailed have been in reality no more radical than 
the ideas of the founders of our nation — as, for 
example, protests against the infringement of the 
right of free speech or against the continued impris- 
onment of political prisoners beyond the immediate 
emergency, the pointing out of obvious evils in the 
present industrial or social order, the calm discussion 
of possible improvements upon or alternatives to 
contemporary institutions. 

In the case of aliens in this country suspected of 
radical sympathies the procedure has been even more 
violent. Thousands of unoffending working-men 
have been suddenly summoned before an inspector of 



FEEE SPEECH 53 

the Bureau of Immigration and subjected to a search- 
ing inquisition into their beliefs. Whether or not they 
have ever joined any radical party or publicly uttered 
any radical opinions, if their private beliefs, as 
extracted by this inquisition, are unsatisfactory to 
the inspector, they can be summarily banished from 
the United States; and many hard-working men, 
innocent of all offence save that of holding a minor- 
ity opinion in the sacred sphere of property or indus- 
trial organization, have been arrested, handcuffed, 
and dragged through the streets like common crimi- 
nals, sent to jail, without a jury trial, and presently 
banished from the country. 

The various socialist and communist parties, such 
as exist unmolested in all countries of Europe — 
flourishing openly even under the Hohenzollerns and 
Hapsburgs — have lately been treated in this country 
by the majority in power as criminal organizations. 
Membership in some of them has been held by the 
Department of Justice as sufficient ground in itself 
for the deportation of otherwise unoffending aliens 
who may have established a home in this country and 
be looking forward to citizenship. Socialist repre- 
sentatives have been excluded from their seats in our 
legislatures because of the party to which they be- 
longed; some of these, when re-elected, have again 
been expelled. 

Worse than all this, bills have been passed by State 
legislatures that lay violent hands upon freedom of 
teaching. According to these bills no schools are to 
be allowed whose teachings are not approved by the 
State authorities, and no teachers are to be given 
teaching certificates who do not promise to be "loyal 
to the institutions and laws" of the State — "disloy- 
alty'^ meaning the advocacy of any important change 



64 LIBEETY 

therein. City Boards of Education have passed reso- 
lutions to withhold diplomas from all public school 
children who do not sign a pledge that they will 
oppose all movements "antagonistic to the laws of 
the United States or tending to subvert the Consti- 
tution/' — under which heads any fundamental re- 
form can, of course, be classified. Students profess- 
ing socialistic ideas have been refused diplomas in 
law. Many public school teachers have been dis- 
missed because they were suspected of radical lean- 
ings or known to be readers of radical publications. 
Not a few college and university professors have lost 
their positions for similar reasons. It no longer is 
wise for a teacher in many of our educational institu- 
tions to profess beliefs unpopular with the Powers 
that Be. 

All of this persecution of opinion, which would 
have seemed incredible in America a few years ago, 
is the outgrowth of the War. It will, no doubt, 
gradually die out. But it has persisted, with little 
public disapproval, for over two years, at date of 
writing, since the cessation of hostilities; and the 
extent to which this wave of intolerance has spread 
over the country is ominous. It shows how little our 
people have been trained to cherish our American 
heritage of liberty of opinion. 

Yet there is no ideal deeper-rooted in our history. 
Thomas Jefferson urged, "If there be any among us 
who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change 
its form, let them stand undisturbed. Let them stand 
undisturbed as monuments to the safety with which 
error of opinion may be tolerated when reason is free 
to combat it.'' Daniel Webster declared that what 
he would most proudly leave to posterity was his 
record that in all circumstances he had favored free- 



FKEE SPEECH 65 

dom of opinion, especially freedom for opinions that 
were in bad repute. President Wilson summed up 
our national ideal in these words: "If there is one 
thing we love more than another in the United States, 
it is that every man should have the privilege, unmo- 
lested and uncriticized, to utter the real convictions 
of his mind." 

That many public-spirited Americans have kept 
this ideal alive in their hearts during the wave of 
repression following the Great War may be witnessed 
by the protest against the Government's policy signed 
by twelve of the most prominent lawyers in the 
country. These eminent and conservative men wrote, 
"We make no argument in favor of any radical doc- 
trine, as such, whether socialist, communist, or an- 
archist. No one of us belongs to any of these schools 
of thought. Nor do we now raise any question as to 
the Constitutional protection of free speech and a 
free press. We are concerned solely with bringing 
to the attention of the American people the utterly 
illegal acts which have been committed by those 
charged with the highest duty of enforcing the laws — 
acts which have caused widespread suffering and 
unrest, have struck at the foundation of American 
free institutions, and have brought the name of out 
country into disrepute.^' 

We must beware of assuming that America belongs 
to us alone, and not to those who disagree with us. 
We must remember what Lincoln said: "This coun- 
try, with its institutions, belongs to the people who 
inhabit if To those who seem to us "radicals," or 
"bourgeois," or "Bourbons," as well as to those who 
agree with us. It takes many kinds of people to 
make a great country. It may happen that one class 
of people, getting into power, is able to run things 



56 LIBERTY 

in its own way for a while, and to make it unsafe for 
another class of people to advocate another way of 
doing things. But nothing could be more disastrous 
than for them to exercise that power. 

The imperious reason why freedom of speech is 
desirable is not the hardship brought upon those who 
differ from the dominant views, but the need of the 
ideas that every one has to contribute. New and 
better ideas are always at first in a minority, always 
unpopular, usually deemed dangerous and immoral 
by the more conservative majority. It was so with 
the ideas of Socrates, and with the ideas of a greater 
than Socrates, the Founder of our own faith. It was 
so with the early Christians, whose views were so 
universally thought to be immoral that they were 
persecuted even by the wise and gentle Marcus 
Aurelius. In a given case we may feel certain that 
the opinion or ideal we are repressing is highly unde- 
sirable ; but we fail to realize that the repressive atti- 
tude is even more dangerous. As Lecky has said, 
"The persecutor can never be certain that he is not 
persecuting truth rather than error, but he can 
always be certain that he is suppressing the s'pirit 
of truth." 

Democracy implies not only government by ma- 
jorities, but freedom of criticism and agitation by 
minorities, the facilitation of the development of 
minorities into majorities, the maintenance of oppor- 
tunities for the hearing of everyone's opinion and for 
the making of whatever social or political changes 
the majority can be brought by open agitation to 
approve. How can we be sure that we have the best 
possible system unless we listen to what every critic, 
every agitator, every idealist, has to say? The proper 
way to combat one-sided and impracticable ideals is 



FKEE SPEECH 57 

to show their unreason, to meet argument by argu- 
ment, to put no artificial barriers in the way of free 
discussion, but to trust to common-sense (reinforced 
by the inertia of conservatism ) to put the brakes upon 
unreasonable proposals. Mr. Justice Holmes has 
stated the true American attitude in memorable 
words : ^^When men have realized that time has upset 
many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even 
more than they believe the very foundations of their 
own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better 
reached by free trade in ideals — that the best test of 
truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted 
in the competition of the market. . . . That at any 
rate is the theory of our Constitution." 

The seriousness of the repressive tendency lies not 
merely in the shutting of the mouths of the actual 
radicals, but in the inevitable lumping together by 
the repressionists of all liberals and reformers with 
the radicals, and thus the checking of all movements 
for genuine political or social progress. It may well 
be argued that the policy of the American Govern- 
ment has suffered greatly since the signing of the 
Armistice through the lack of enlightened public 
criticism, the result of the censorship and repression 
of discussion unfavorable to the policies of the 
administration. 

At any rate, however exceptional may be the case 
in wartime, an era of peace should welcome the de- 
velopment of individual thought, however contrary 
to accepted doctrines it may be. We should say, as 
Voltaire said to Helvetius, "I wholly disapprove of 
what you say and will defend to the death your right 
to say it." Or as Elihu Root lately put it, "Men in 
a self-governing democracy must have a love of liberty 



68 LIBERTY 

that means not merely one's own liberty but others' 
liberty.'' 

Radicalism is not one single, united, sinister, red- 
handed thing. Radicalism is a name for a great 
number of very diverse theories, largely incompatible 
with one another, and mostly actuated by idealistic 
and humanitarian motives. Selfish and anti-social 
motives are probably no commoner among radicals 
than among conservatives. What we should do, 
then, is to encourage discussion of radical ideas to 
the utmost, develop our Open Forum movements, our 
Neighborhood Centers, our political clubs, air these 
new ideas, develop newer ideas, confront them in 
reasoned debate with older ideas. The fear that 
America will be destroyed by such a procedure is a 
childish fear. We are not so near the brink of 
collapse that we need to fear what anyone has to say. 
On the contrary, if the method of repression grows 
upon us and becomes a settled policy, much that is 
best in American life will already have disappeared. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

J. B. Bury, History o.f Freedom of Thought. 

Zechariah Chaffee, Jr., Freedom of Speech. 

Publications of the American Sociological Society, vol. 9. 

Graham Wallas, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 125, p. 116. 

J. H. Kobinson, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 120, p. 811. 

John Dewey, in The New Republic, vol. 12, p. 128. 

Vida Scudder, in Century Magazine, vol. 70, p. 222. 

Alexander Meiklejohn, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 121, p. 83. 

J. M. Cattell, in School and Society, vol. 6, p. 421. 

H. J. Laski, in New Republic, vol. 21, p. 335. 

Roscoe Pound, in Harvard Law Review, vol. 28, pp. 445, 453. 

American Civil Liberties Union; Report upon the Illegal Prac- 
tices of the United States Department of Justice (May, 
1920). 

Publications of the Free Speech League, 120 Lexington Avenue, 
New York, N. Y. 

E. Ritchie, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 14, p. 161. 



CHAPTEE VII 

LAW AND ORDER 

There is one sort of person, and only one, that the 
machinery of repression should be turned against — 
the person who breaks or urges the breaking of the 
laws of the land. Detest as we may a man's opinions, 
we most give them free room unless they call for the 
violation of laws, or the use of violence to subvert 
the existing order. On the other hand, however we 
may sympathize with the ideals of some revolutionist, 
and much as we may desire with him to see some 
obnoxious law repealed, we cannot tolerate the pro- 
posal to disobey it while it remains upon the statute- 
books. The lawabiding spirit is the prime essential 
for the success of a democracy. 

It is true that we all sympathize with the great 
revolutionists of the past — with Gambetta and 
Kossuth and Garibaldi, with the French and Russian 
revolutionists, and our own forefathers, who refused 
to obey the laws of their sovereign and by violence 
achieved a new political order. It is true that, as 
Gladstone said, "If the people of this country had 
obeyed the precept to preserve order and eschew vio- 
lence, the liberties of this country would never have 
been obtained." But these resorts to violent means 
were justified because no peaceful channel was open 
for reform, and because the benefit sought by the 
arbitrament of war was for a whole people, not for 
a section or class. In a democracy like ours any alter- 

59 



60 LIBERTY 

ation in the political or industrial order is possible; 
it is merely a question of winning the approval of a 
majority of the people. And no change ought to be 
made without the verdict of that approval. The 
South attempted a sectional schism, and was deci- 
sively defeated, as any section or class will be that 
seeks to free itself from the common law of the land. 
The issue of that war decided that, as Lincoln put it, 
"among free men there can be no successful appeal 
from the ballot to the bullet." 

The evil of violence lies not merely in the specific 
bloodshed and economic destruction effected, but in 
the precedent set. Human nature is all too prone 
to resort to blows instead of argument; and if this 
group or that were to win their point by lawbreaking, 
or some illegal coup d/etat, other groups would be 
powerfully encouraged to yield to their impatience 
with the slow growth of public opinion and try the 
same short cut to the result they desire. There is no 
case in the whole field of morals where it is more 
important that everyone shall keep to a code, in spite 
of whatever immediate sacrifice. The code of law- 
abidingness must have the loyalty of every citizen, 
or we shall soon find ourselves drifting into chaos. 

Moreover, even a successful revolution achieved by 
a class or group within the nation would not be 
stable; no change in the mechanism of politics or 
industry would be permanent that did not rest upon 
the sincere conviction of the majority of the people. 
And when that majority is secured, violence is no 
longer necessary to secure the change. Violence, 
on the contrary, stimulates opposition, increases 
estrangements, encourages the use of counter-violence, 
makes it harder for classes to work together and 
understand one another. Yet work together we must, 



LAW AND OEDER 61 

in the end, and learn to use peaceful means for 
making changes. The slow road of education, propa- 
ganda, campaigning, and the ballot, will be in the 
long run the quickest road to the attainment of any 
reform that is genuinely desirable. 

Unhappil}^, respect for the slow processes of law 
is not a mark of a pioneer country; and our nation, 
strong with the strength of youth and rich with the 
exploitation of the virgin resources of a continent, 
has not yet fully learned the necessity of restraint. 
Lord Bryce has declared that our greatest fault is 
^^the disposition to be lax in enforcing laws disliked 
by any large part of the population, to tolerate 
breaches of public order, to be too indulgent to 
offenders generally." 

The most flagrant example of our lawlessness is, 
of course, the lynchings we tolerate. In the past 
thirty years over three thousand people have been 
put to death by mobs in this country — a record worse 
than that of any other contemporary civilized State, 
up to the time of the Great War. The number of 
annual lynchings has begun to decrease appreciably ; 
but some of the most brutal and inexcusable of these 
mob murders have been perpetrated within the past 
few years. The fact that more than three-quarters 
of the victims were negroes points to the factor of 
race prejudice but does not in the least palliate the 
crimes. The offence charged has by no means always 
been rape — the suspicion of which most arouses 
human passions ; in many cases the alleged crime was 
of a trivial character. And in very many cases the 
evidence of the guilt of the victim has been meager. 
Certainly in a number of cases an innocent man has 
been tortured and hanged or burned to death. It is 
true that the most progressive sections of the country 



62 LIBERTY 

are free from tliis horror. But the stain rests upon 
the Nation as a whole; and it is nothing short of 
grotesque to make a great hue and cry about imagined 
Bolshevists in our midst when men and women of 
American descent thus practise the most brutal forms 
of violence and go unpunished therefor. 

As a matter of fact, violence by "Bolshevists," by 
anarchists, by radicals of any sort bent on terrorizing 
and bloodshed, has existed to very slight extent in 
this country. There has been more or less open 
advocacy of revolutionary methods, of the destruc- 
tion of property, by the propea^tyless, of sabotage, by 
underpaid and underfed workers, of armed revolu- 
tion, when the "proletariat" could be brought to the 
point of revolution. But the sporadic cases of vio- 
lence actually attempted have been vigorously con- 
demned by the rank and file of labor; and there is 
absolutely no danger of armed revolution in the 
present temper of the masses. The fact is, we are 
too prosperous ; revolution thrives upon hardship and 
hunger. In spite of much that is unjust and exas- 
perating in our social order, conditions are not such 
as drive men to bloodshed and anarchy. 

It is, indeed, a fair question whether more actual 
lawbreaking and violence has not been committed by 
the noisy advocates of "law and order," the "hundred 
per cent Americans" who -oel every critic of con- 
temporary institutions a "Bolshevist," who raid 
illegally the offices of radical newspapers, break up 
Socialist meetings and parades, threaten labor or- 
ganizers, and urge the jailing or deportation of every 
"red." There has been no more flagrant violation of 
law than the Bisbee deportations, in 1917, carried out 
by the bitter enemies of organized labor — an outrage 
for which no punishment was ever inflicted. There 



LAW AND ORDEK 63 

has been probably more violence committed in time 
of strikes by the strikebreakers and hired servants 
of the employers than by the strikers. 

In any case, whatever the facts may be as to the 
past, we must be stern to repress illegal action in the 
future, whether committed by a lower class or an 
upper class, by an I. W. W. agitator or the hired thug 
of a great corporation. 

But it is not enough to repress violence, we must 
seek to counteract the influences that lead to it. 
Among those influences there are three of chief im- 
portance. In the first place, there is the conviction, 
current here and there among the lower classes, that 
the social order is weighted against them, that they 
have no hope of securing their share of the good 
things of life except through some violent convulsion. 
This conviction we must combat by promoting a dis- 
cussion of their grievances, real or supposed, and 
focusing the attention of publicists and legislators 
upon their cure. If these disaffected people can be 
shown that their government is sincerely interested 
in their welfare — shown by acts as well as by plat- 
form promises — they will cease to look to extra- 
governmental means for improving their condition. 

In the second place, the upper classes, those who 
are well off under our present system of laws, must 
cease to regard that system as sacrosanct. Reverence 
for law and order means properly the insistence upon 
using the ballot alone for altering the legal struc- 
ture, not the insistence upon retaining unmodified a 
given social system. Criticism of our laws, even of 
our Constitution, is not equivalent to advocacy of 
disobedience to these laws while they remain on the 
statute-books. To brand as ^'disloyal" every honest 
thinker who holds that our present system can be 



64: LIBERTY 

improved upon is to cheapen respect for that system. 
It has often been true that the most devoted patriots 
have been the keenest critics of their country's poli- 
cies and laws. It is possible to criticize our existing 
political or industrial system, not because we do not 
love our country, but precisely because we love her 
too well to be content that she should have any but 
the most ideal system that can be devised. To assume 
that wisdom died with our fathers, and that the laws 
they conceived are to be petrified and made un- 
changeable is to belie the spirit of those valiant 
reformers and to supplant Americanism with Bour- 
bonism — the maintenance of what is, simply because 
it is to some people's advantage to keep it as it is. 

In the third place, and most important of all, if 
lawlessness on the part of the disaffected is to be 
avoided, they must be given every opportunity to air 
their opinions openly and without fear. Deny men 
the right of free speech, and you foster in them the 
revolutionai-y spirit. Nothing cheapens the author- 
ity of the laws more than the browbeating of those 
who protest against them. Free speech, and plenty 
of it, is the great safety valve; conversely, as 
President Wilson has put it, "repression is the seed 
of revolution.^' 

This, then, is an argument for free speech perhaps 
even more important than those we discussed in the 
preceding chapter. No argument for any existing 
law or custom will weigh with those who chafe under 
it unless they feel perfectly free, with safety, to 
express their arguments against it. The utter 
futility of the repression policy is obvious to any 
careful observer, or, indeed, to any student of psy- 
chology. The suppressed ideas do not vanish, they 
work underground, and, like steam without an outlet, 



LAW AND ORDER 65 

become more and more explosive. On the other hand, 
as Mr. Justice Holmes recently wrote, "with effer- 
vescing opinions, as with the not yet forgotten cham- 
pagnes, the quickest way to let them get flat is to let 
them get exposed to the air." 

In a society as complex as ours, there is bound to 
be disaffection. No sensible person can suppose that 
our present civilization achieves the maximum of 
human welfare obtainable. If there were no unrest, 
there would be no hope of progress. Our danger is 
not in unrest, it is in unrest that is suppressed, 
ignored, inarticulate. Our hope is in unrest that 
crystallizes into concrete proposals which can be 
debated until they convert the majority or disappear 
through the impact of sound and fair-minded argu- 
ment. Institutions inherently justifiable will never 
be overthrown by iconoclastic agitators, they may be 
overthrown only if they are artificially protected 
from criticism and hence come to be regarded as 
without reasonable justification. 

One of the sanest proposals of recent years is that 
of the eminent sociologist, Dr. Edward T. Devine: 
"Let all of those who have grievances be openly . . . 
invited to voice tli£m. Let President Wilson and 
every governor and every mayor designate great 
public meeting places — in halls and in public parks — 
where the freely chosen representatives of every 
group . . . may express their views. Let the secret 
service men attend, not to find victims for prosecu- 
tion, but to catch the faintest whisper of a just com- 
plaint. Let legislative assemblies give patient hear- 
ing to delegates who come to them from such assem- 
blies. Let grand juries weigh their complaints, 
whether against individuals or against any existing 
abuse which might be remedied. Let the industries 



66 LIBERTY 

be represented by their detectives, not to spot agita- 
tors to discharge them, but to make careful notes of 
any bad practises which might be reformed. . . . Let 
it be considered bad form to characterize any man as a 
Bolshevist merely because you do not agree with him. 
. . . Let us have parades of Socialists or Communists, 
or Christians, or any other sect that can muster 
enough enthusiasm and confidence in their cause to 
make a showing. Let us make it the greatest offense 
against morals and manners to silence the voice of a 
prophet; to refuse a respectful hearing to those who 
speak in the name of a more perfect justice, in the 
name of a better social order." 

So we are brought to the conclusion that as law is 
not the enemy of liberty, so lawlessness is the product 
not of liberty but of its denial. It is not less liberty 
that we need, but more. If we would avoid the law- 
less state through which Mexico, for example, has 
been passing, we must guard against that assumption 
of despotic power and that denial of popular rights 
which has engendered there a contempt for the ballot 
as the means of reform and an impatience of the 
restraints of law. Obedience to law can be expected 
only if the law represents the free will and sincere 
convictions of the people. The Pilgrims, drawing up 
the Famous Mayflower Compact, November 11, 1620, 
pledged to yield to their laws "all due submission and 
obedience'' ; but they offered their allegiance because 
the laws were their own, not imposd upon them from 
above. 

Washington, in his Farewell Address, declared 
that "the very idea of the power and the right of the 
people to establish Government presupposes the duty 
of every individual to obey the established Govern- 
ment.'' Jefferson, in his First Inaugural, asserted 



LAW AND ORDER 67 

that liberty is to be secured only "by absolute acqui- 
escence in the decisions of the majority; the vital 
principle of republics, from which there is no appeal 
but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent 
of despotism/' 

This principle was reaffirmed by Lincoln in these 
well-known words: "Let every American, every 
lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity 
swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate 
in the least particular the laws of the country, and 
never to tolerate their violation by others. As the 
patriots of '76 did to the support of the Declaration 
of Independence, so to the support of the Constitu- 
tion and the laws, let every American pledge his life, 
his property, and his sacred honor; let every man 
remember that to violate the law is to trample upon 
the blood of his fathers and to tear the charter of his 
own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the 
laws be breathed by every American mother to the 
lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught 
in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges. Let it be 
written in primers, spelling books, and almanacs. 
Let it be preached from the pulpits, proclaimed in 
legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. 
In short, let it become the political religion of the 
Nation." 

And finally, Roosevelt, speaking at Columbus, Sep- 
tember 10, 1910, declared, "The first essential to the 
achievement of justice is that law and order shall ob- 
tain, that violence shall be repressed, that the orderly 
course of law shall be unobstructed, and that those 
who commit violence shall be sternly punished." 

This is the American tradition. It is broken by 
anyone who urges bomb-throwing, assassination, dis- 
obedience to the laws, arrest without warrant, punish- 



68 LIBERTY 

ment without due trial by jury, the incitement of class 
against class, suppression of free speech and a free 
press, the branding by opprobrious names of those 
with whom we disagree, the use of any means but 
open argument and the ballot-box either for the 
attaining of a better order or the maintenance of the 
order that now is. We are passing through perilous 
times, and may have to pass through times still more 
perilous. But no harm will come to the American 
Republic if we remain true to our heritage of liberty 
for all within the law, 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

-Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism: Law, Order and 

Justice. 
W. H. Hamilton, Current Economic Problems, pp. 637-646. 
Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, pp. 410-413. 
P. F. Brissenden, The Launching of the I. W. W. 
J. E. Cutler, Lynch-Law, 
J. G. Brooks, American Syndicalism. 
Ole Hanson, Americanism vs. Bolshevism. 
G. Sorel, Reflections on Violence. 

J. Spargo, Syndicalism, Industrial Unionism, and Socialism. 
Thorstein Veblen, On the Nature and Uses of Sabotage. 
Roland Hugins, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 123, p. 701. 
Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, published by 

the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 

People, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 
H. R. Mussey, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 441. 



PART TWO 
EQUALITY 



CHAPTER VIII 

JUSTICE FOR ALIi 

The Declaration of Independence asserts that "all 
men are created equal." This is not, of course, the 
announcement of a biological law, but an emphatic 
way of saying that all men ought to have equality of 
treatment — equal security for life and limb, equal 
access to the means for developing their capacities, 
equal opportunities for the pursuit of happiness. 
There must be here no hereditary office or rank, or 
social class ; every career must be open to anyone who 
can make good in it. "Every American is as good 
as his brains and character and manners, and no 
better." This is the second great principle of 
Americanism. De Tocqueville hardly exaggerated 
when he said that we were so devoted to it that we 
had rather be equal in slavery than unequal in 
freedom. 

Equality cannot be secured by a mere absence of 
discriminatory laws and customs. Life is like a 
handicap race; much must be done for the weaker 
among us to secure for them an opportunity for hap- 
piness equal to that of their stronger or more for- 
tunate neighbors. But the foundation must be laid 
in an absolute equality of all citizens before the law. 
Not only must every citizen have the protection of 
the law from injustice and injury, anywhere in the 
world, on land or on sea, and a right to fair trial by 
due process, whenever accused of wrongdoing, but, 

71 



72 EQUALITY 

most essential of all, he must have assurance of an 
administration of justice that is impartial toward 
rich and poor, high and low, educated and ignorant, 
white and black. 

If we have had no personal experience to refute our 
optimism, we shall naturally assume that this is the 
case in America. But a little study of the facts shows 
that our ideal is not completely realized. Many of 
our conservative statesmen and lawyers, as well as 
more radical writers, have expressed opinions similar 
to that of ex-President Taft: "Of all the questions 
which are before the American people, I regard no 
one as more important than the improvement of the 
administration of justice. We must make it so that 
the poor man will have as nearly as possible an equal 
opportunity in litigation with the rich man; and 
under present conditions, ashamed as we may be of 
it, this is not the fact." 

In what respects is it not the fact? Well, in the 
first place, it costs more than a poor man can afford 
to hire a good lawyer to defend his case. The rich 
offender has at his command the services of the 
cleverest attorneys, who are skilled in the many tech- 
nical devices by which justice can be delayed or side- 
tracked altogether. At least, every extenuating cir- 
cumstance will be emphasized, every precedent favor- 
able to his case will be hunted up, every resource of 
dialectic and persuasion brought to bear upon the 
witnesses and the jury. A highly paid alienist may 
testify to a temporary fit of insanity on the part of 
his client. Altogether, cases are well known in which 
rich men guilty of the worst crimes have escaped with 
light penalties or with none. 

The law does, indeed, provide for the defense of 
every man accused of crime, by assigning counsel to 



JUSTICE FOR ALL 73 

those who cannot afford their own lawyers. But 
these are usually unsuccessful lawyers, no match for 
the rich man's attorneys, and often little interested in 
the cases assigned to them. It is a common belief 
among the criminal classes that conviction or ac- 
quittal depends upon the sum they can pay to their 
counsel. There are a great number of "shyster" 
lawyers who get what fees they can collect from the 
poor, and render little or no service in return; in 
some cases they do not even take the trouble to go 
to court when the case comes up. 

An ex-convict, writing in the Outlook for Decem- 
ber 27, 1916, declares that among the men who went 
to trial "a majority seemed to believe that freedom 
or imprisonment was largely a matter of money. If 
they could raise enough of this to secure certain 
lawyers, the result was almost foreordained. And 
certainly there appeared solid ground for this belief 
in that these men did secure verdicts of ^not guilty^ 
for several scores of prisoners who had made little 
secret of their guilt while among us. . . . Study of 
the situation reveals that not more than ten per cent 
of criminals have the means to engage really capable 
attorneys. And usually these are of the types most 
dangerous to society. . . . The criminal lawyers . . . 
have taught the professional criminal that he can 
^get away with anything short of murder' if he has 
the money." 

Now, however common or unusual this situation 
may be, it is intolerable that even the suspicion of 
it should rest upon our judicial system. At least this 
much should be done: defense, like prosecution, 
should be recognized as a public matter ; there should 
be Public Defenders, as well paid as prosecuting at- 
torneys, well enough paid to attract to the position 



74 EQUALITY 

men of ability and experience. The securing of jus- 
tice requires as great skill in defense as in prosecu- 
tion, and an equal skill available to rich and poor. 
If this plan, already in practice in some American 
communities, is universally applied, we may hope to 
substitute in the minds of the poor a genuine respect 
for the law for the contempt and fear that they now 
too often feel. Society must be protected equally 
against jugglery of law and evidence in favor of the 
rich offender, and an inadequate hearing of the case 
of the poor. 

Still more serious than this weighting of the scales 
of justice in favor of rich offenders is the trend of 
judicial decisions and interpretations in favor of the 
possessing classes as against the working-man. It 
has been often said, and not without show of reason, 
that the majority of our lawyers and judges, coming 
from the upper stratum of society, are unconsciously 
prejudiced in favor of property rights as against 
human rights. This, at least, is a widespread con- 
viction among the poorer classes ; and it must receive 
the gravest attention; for nothing could bode more 
ill for our Republic than the growth of this conviction 
that justice is a class affair. 

To realize the extent of this conviction we have 
but to read the resolutions unanimously adopted by 
the American Federation of Labor at its convention 
in 1919. An extract follows: ^^Our organization of 
law presents a mass of inconsistencies and contradic- 
tions. While organizations of capital are encouraged 
and protected, combinations of workers are con- 
stantly attacked. While employers may unite and 
combine against workers and against the buying 
public, the right of the workers to resist encroach- 
ments and to right admitted wrongs is constantly 



JUSTICE FOR ALL 75 

tjeing interfered with. . . . Whenever an officer of an 
incorporated financial, industrial, or commercial en- 
terprise exceeds the power specifically delegated to 
him, the courts declare his act ultra vires and the 
company is absolved from all responsibility. But 
when a labor man at a trade union meeting makes 
utterances which are condemned by those in author- 
ity, the union and its members may be robbed of their 
funds and savings. 

''It was the spirit of the jurisprudence of slavery 
which forbade the slaves the opportunity to read to 
defend themselves; and so it is the jurisprudence of 
employers of today to continue doctrines which deny 
the workers a full opportunity of defence. The time 
has passed, however, when our courts should be 
longer permitted to devise legal doctrines and design 
local fictions by which to deny the wage earners equal 
rights and privileges before the law . . . 

''The power of our courts to declare legislation 
unconstitutional and void is a most flagrant usurpa- 
tion of power and authority by our courts and is a 
repudiation and denial of the principle of self-govern- 
ment recognized now as a world doctrine. The con- 
tinued exercise of this unwarranted power is a blas- 
phemy on the rights and claims of free men of 
America." 

We have already had occasion to notice that there 
have been a great number of cases in which humani- 
tarian legislation, legislation favoring w^orking-men 
and women, has been set aside as unconstitutional by 
the courts because it interfered with property rights. 
Eight-hour, and even ten-hour, laws; laws forbidding 
tenement-house labor of certain sorts; laws forbid- 
ding child-labor ; laws requiring payment of wages in 
cash instead of truck; a law forbidding employers to 



76 EQUALITY 

discharge employees for being members of a labor 
union, have thus been annulled by the courts. In 
1917 the Supreme Court went even further, and 
declared that a Labor Union has no right, against an 
employer's wish, to urge his workmen to join the 
union. The New York State Supreme Court declared 
the workman's compensation law unconstitutional, 
and it required a constitutional amendment to make 
it operative. 

At the same time that the Courts have thus been 
annulling laws passed in the interest of the weaker 
members of society, they have been sustaining the 
powers of the great Corporations, and making possi- 
ble the prodigious profit-takings of the past few dec- 
ades. It is no wonder, then, that not only the repre- 
sentatives of the laboring classes, but many members 
of the professional classes, have felt that the Courts 
were essentially a class-institution. A distinguished 
student of public affairs wrote with some bitterness, 
in 1919, ^'Within the last year the case of the United 
States against the Standard Oil Company for viola- 
tion of the statutes directed against rebates was dis- 
missed by the courts, while the officers of the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor were committed to jail for 
alleged violation of a court order.'' 

It is useless to expect, of course, that prejudice will 
not enter into judicial decisions. All men are full 
of prejudices; lawyers and judges are no exception. 
The fact that there are precedents available for 
almost any possible decision, and that judges differ 
upon almost every disputed case, means that the ele- 
ment of unconscious bias must be a considerable fac- 
tor. What is essential, then, is that judges should be 
drawn from all classes of cociety, subject to all the 
conflicting prejudices, and that decisions of impor- 



JUSTICE FOR ALL 77 

tance should be made only by a two-thirds vote, or 
even perhaps a unanimous vote, of a panel of judges 
representing all schools of thought. 

It is also important that the law should be con- 
ceived not merely as a mass of precedents, a binding 
grip of the past upon the present, but that fresh inter- 
pretations shall keep our laws in touch with changing 
conditions. It is necessary that judges be men "who 
have a large comprehension of our country's needs, 
wide conceptions of social justice, and who have 
creative minds — who can make legal interpretations 
contribute to the structure of our government." To 
this end the law schools should teach their students 
and the legal profession should inculcate among its 
members the realization that their ultimate aim must 
be to serve the welfare of the country. 

But justice must go farther than to treat the rich 
and poor alike, and to rate human needs above prop- 
erty interests. It must take account of the influences 
that lead certain people almost irresistibly into 
crime; it must seek to give them a fair chance by 
counteracting as far as possible these evil forces. 
It must see to it that the punishment inflicted for 
crime is not of such a nature as to brutalize and make 
a hardened criminal out of a first offender. It must 
see to it that a man who has fallen once has eveiy 
possible opportunity to recover his self-respect and 
the respect of society. In these aspects of what we 
might call the Broader Justice, we must confess that 
we are only at the beginning of imperative reforms. 
Our penology may compare favorably with that of 
some other countries. But nothing should content 
America but the best. And our present penal system 
is far short of what it ought to be. 

It is an axiom of modern criminology that most 



78 EQUALITY 

crime is preventable. In the phrase that has become 
familiar, "All men are possible criminals, and all 
criminals possible men." The number of convicts 
released for war-service who won commissions and 
medals, and the greater number who made good in 
less spectacular ways, should convince the most re- 
luctant of the needless injustice in branding a man 
as a criminal for life because of one offence. It should 
also show that what a man becomes depends largely 
upon the nature of his environment and opportuni- 
ties. We have been too slow to discriminate between 
the pathological, hopeless criminal, and the man 
w^hom we might call a chance offender, a victim of 
circumstances. Toward the latter we need the hum- 
bler and more generous attitude expressed in the 
words attributed to various godly lips, "There but 
for the Grace of God go I !" 

Perhaps a third of the inmates of our prisons 
showed signs in childhood or youth of abnormality. 
They should have been carefully watched by the 
school medical examiners and either given a special 
corrective treatment or education, or, if necessary, 
removed from the pressure of an environment in 
which they were practically sure to go wrong. Most 
of these defectives and abnormal individuals could be 
kept from crime and made into self-supporting citi- 
zens by proper precautions. The more hopeless ones 
should have been put where they could never have 
been dangerous to society, without waiting for the 
harm to be done and the stigma of "criminal" to 
attach to them. 

As to the other two-thirds of our criminals, prob- 
ably more than half would have kept clear of crime 
but for the pressure of poverty, of over-hard and 
unpleasant work, of crowded, noisy, unsanitary, 



JUSTICE FOE ALL 79 

uncomfortable homes. The provision of adequate 
housing accommodations and decently pleasant work- 
ing conditions, with reasonable hours and wages ; and 
the securing of education for everyone, so that all 
can earn an honest living and have resources for their 
leisure hours, — these are the minimum requirements 
of our American ideal of justice for all. 

There will still be those who will yield to passion 
or seductive temptation and commit anti-social acts. 
With these our aim should be not revenge but refor- 
mation. Most of these offenders, if treated kindly 
and trained in social co-operation, would come to 
regret their mistake and would emerge from their 
imprisonment with a resolve never to return. But 
this is a matter for expert treatment, as far removed 
as A from Z from the incredibly stupid treatment that 
prisoners now sometimes receive. Many of our 
prisons are scandalously unhygienic ; the wardens are 
often men without special training for their office, 
if, indeed, they are not coarse and of a lower moral 
grade than some of their charges. Little is done usu- 
ally to train the unskilled prisoners in any vocation ; 
in many cases they are even required to pass their 
days in idleness. Often young offenders are allowed 
to associate freely with men who are hardened and 
who take pleasure in teaching them criminal ways. 
Little is done, if anything, to remedy the defect of 
character which caused their fall. They are kept 
under restraint for a period of unhappiness and 
brooding, and then turned loose upon society again. 

There is no need to labor the point that we are not 
fair to our criminals. Many of them have never had 
a fair chance to become reputable citizens; many 
others who have abused their opportunities could 
also, by proper training and environment, be made 



80 EQUALITY 

over into men of use to society. Some will, no doubt, 
prove hopeless. But a more discriminating treatment 
would salvage most of the human wreckage that now 
disgraces our civilization. 

As a scientific penology proved the possibility of 
restoring most offenders to normal citizenship, the 
people at large would become less wary of accepting 
the services of those who had served prison terms, 
and there would be a mitigation, at least, of that cruel 
suspiciousness which makes it all but impossible now 
for a man who has once fallen to regain the respect 
of his fellows and build for himself again a respect- 
able life. Another chance for everybody, should ^e 
our demand. If our prisons were all scientifically 
managed our faith in their efficiency as reform- 
schools would be justified, and the professionally 
criminal class would lose the many recruits that join 
it out of desperation at the attitude toward them of 
society. 

Human life can never be made to offer equal oppor- 
tunities to all. We shall be to the end different in 
brains, in good looks, in health, in a thousand things 
that contribute to the determination of our conduct. 
But if we sincerely cherish our ideal of Justice to 
all, we must realize that far more is necessary for its 
attainment than the judicial and penal systems that 
we as yet possess. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Frank Parsons, Legal Doctrine and Social Progress, Chap. VIII. 

E-. B. Fosdick, American Police Systems. 

R. H. Smith, Justice and the Poor. 

G. G. Groat, The Attitude of American Courts in Labor Cases. 

E. P. Edie, Current Social and Industrial Forces, pp. 223-229. 

C. E. Merriam, American Political Ideas, Chap. V. 

P. A. Parsons, Responsibility for Crime. 



JUSTICE rOR ALL 81 

A. H. Currier, The Present Daa/ Prohlem of Crime. 

R. M. McConnell, Criminal Responsibility and Social Con- 
straint. 

T. S. Mosby, Crime and its Causes and Cures. 

F. Tannenbaum, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 125, p. 433. 

H. A. Overstreet, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 25, 
p. 277. 



CHAPTER IX 

RACIAL EQUALITY 

The toleration of negro slavery was, of course, the 
great crime, the great inconsistency, in a nation 
founded upon the principle that ''all men are created 
equal." That crime was atoned for by the blood and 
tears of the Civil War, and ended by the Fourteenth 
and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. 
Now Lincoln, the Emancipator, is known and rever- 
enced by the poorest child who earns or is given a 
copper cent. 

Scarcely less serious a stain upon our record has 
been our treatment of the natives of our land, the 
American Indians. They were subjugated with com- 
parative ease by the superior numbers and weapons 
of the European settlers, and thereupon denied citi- 
zenship, banished tO' the far West, cooped up upon 
Reserves, and treated in a way that justifies the title 
of a recent volume, A Century of Dishonor. A com- 
mission appointed by President Grant to report upon 
Indian affairs published this conclusion : ''The his- 
tory of the Government connection with the Indians 
is a shameful record of broken treaties and unfulfilled 
promises. The history of the border white man's con- 
nection with the Indians is a sickening record of 
murder, outrage, robbery and wrongs committed by 
the former, as the rule, and occasional outbreaks and 
unspeakably barbarous deeds of retaliation by the 
latter, as the exception." 



EACIAL EQUALITY 83 

The nation has now generally recognized the wrong 
that was done the negro and the Indian. What re- 
mains of the latter race seems in a fair way to be 
absorbed into the common American stock. But the 
negro race remains a sharply distinct race, whose 
intermarriage is not usually regarded as desirable. 
Human nature being what it is, a certain racial an- 
tipathy seems unconquerable; and the presence of 
eleven millions of negroes in this country gives rise 
to a very serious problem. 

It is not that the negroes are an "inferior" race. 
Modern biology has been undermining that compla- 
cent assumption of innate superiority which the white 
man has until recently taken for granted. Recent 
investigations seem to indicate that there is no very 
great difference in average mental ability between the 
members of the white, red, yellow, brown and black 
races. It may be — though it has not yet been deci- 
sively proved — that the average of negro capacity is 
somewhat below the average capacity of the white 
race. But in any case, the range of capacity within 
each race is so great as compared with any average 
difference that there may be between the races, that 
no difference in attitude toward any race as a whole 
is justified because of different mental capacity. 

It would seem, if these biological investigations are 
trustworthy, that the apparent lower capacity of the 
negroes, as of every backward race, is to be explained 
mainly, if not altogether, by the absence of an 
environment favorable for development. Give the 
negroes equal educational and cultural advantages, 
and in a generation there will be no more problem of 
a backward race there than there is with the 
Japanese, who, in a generation, have leaped from a 
semi-civilized status to be one of the world's great 



84 EQUALITY 

Powers. The poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the 
great educational achievement of Booker Washington 
— possibly the greatest educational achievement of 
the past generation, the undisputed genius of many 
negroes in this and other countries, reveals the poten- 
tialities in a hitherto cramped and suppressed race. 
The problem of the negro is not so much the problem 
of the negro as the problem of the white man who does 
not want to extend to him equal advantages. 

It is easy, of course, for a Northerner, who sees few 
negroes, to preach equality of treatment. It is quite 
another matter for a Southerner who lives in a region 
where, perhaps, the blacks outnumber the whites, to 
practice such equality. But it should be unnecessary 
to insist that the denial of equal rights and privileges 
to any race is fundamentally un-American. The 
negro in many parts of the country does not get equal 
justice. He is brutally treated by the police. If there 
is a quarrel between whites and blacks, it is usually 
the blacks that are arrested. In the recent Chicago 
race-riots — which started with the shameless murder 
of an innocent colored boy — twenty-three colored and 
fifteen white people were killed ; but the arrests and 
indictments of negroes were five times as numerous 
as those of whites. The lynchings that disgrace our 
land have usually negroes for the victims, although 
the statistics show that the negroes are a compara- 
tively law-abiding race. More cases of rape are re- 
corded annually as committed by white men in a 
single Northern city than by all the negroes in the 
South. 

Apart from this flagrant injustice, the petty indig- 
nities to which the negro population is subject in 
many parts of the South show how undeveloped the 
sense of human equality still remains. The nasty 



EACIAL EQUALITY 85 

waiting-rooms and railway cars which negroes must 
use, the discourtesies of conductors and ticket-agents 
and hotel men, make travelling for the refined negro 
extremely disagreeable. Employers cheat their negro 
helpers, storekeepers insult them, politicians indulge 
in coarse jests and vituperation at their expense, a 
venal press fans the flame of race prejudice by mis- 
representing facts and exploiting whatever cases of 
negro criminality come to hand. There is a wide- 
spread effort to keep the negro in a position of 
inferiority; and to justify this injustice, there is a 
continual stream of abuse poured upon him, to prove 
that the discrimination is deserved. 

Most serious of all is the denial of educational 
privileges. The recent constitutional amendments in 
most of the Southern States withhold the ballot from 
the illiterate blacks; and there is therefore a wide- 
spread desire to keep them illiterate in order to pre- 
sent their obtaining political power. No Southern 
state permits white and negro children to attend the 
same public schools ; four states prohibit even mixed 
private schools and colleges. One state goes so far 
as to forbid whites from teaching negroes ! In many 
parts of the South the sums available for negro educa- 
tion are shamelessly small — far less than the sums 
available for white children, though the negro chil- 
dren may outnumber the whites. Figures available 
some years ago showed that although the negroes con- 
stitute eleven per cent of our population, they get the 
benefit of but two per cent of the school funds of the 
country. As a result, ignorance still prevails among the 
negroes ; and it is no wonder if poverty, crime and vice, 
the concomitants of ignorance, too largely prevail. 

Thus, instead of solving the problem by helping the 
negro to rise to a higher level, many of their white 



86 EQUALITY 

neighbors are doing their best to keep the negroes 
down, retarding the only possible solution. What 
with the educational disqualification, from which 
most of the illiterate whites are exempt, and the poll- 
tax laws, and the pressure of white disapproval of 
negro participation in politics, the negroes are not in 
a position to relieve their own situation at the ballot- 
box. It is necessary to awaken the conscience of 
their white compatriots to the true implications of 
Americanism. 

The act of freeing and giving the franchise to the 
negroes was, as Professor Hartley Alexander has said, 
"the most heroic act of political faith in history.'' 
They have not had a fair chance to justify that faith. 
But some of their leaders are making heroic efforts 
to uplift their people. The return of negro soldiers 
from participation in the War, with its broadening 
outlook, the growing appreciation of the economic 
value of the negro in a time when farm-labor is 
increasingly scarce, the work of the few endowed 
negro schools, and of such bodies as the National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 
offer hope for the alleviation of an intolerable situa- 
tion. At any rate, the negroes are not dying out, not 
emigrating, not being blended with the rest of the 
population. Their degradation involves the degrada- 
tion, in some degree, of their white neighbors; as 
Booker Washington used to say, "You can't keep a 
man in the ditch without staying in the ditch with 
him." The only possible solution of the negro prob- 
lem lies in a frank recognition of the American prin- 
ciple of equality. This does not imply intermarriage 
or unnecessary social contact. It does imply equal 
rights — to education, to the ballot, to all the privi- 



EACIAL EQUALITY 87 

leges available to the white population. America is 
theirs as well as ours. 

The crux of the negro problem lies in the fact that, 
on the one hand, we do not want tO' assimilate them 
biologically, and, on the other hand, the presence of 
an unassimilated race so different from our own 
creates an unhappy social situation. The situation 
seems permanently unsatisfactory, with no way out. 
We can, and must, insist on fair treatment for the 
negroes ; we must respect them and cease to look upon 
them as inferiors. But we should learn the lesson of 
our fathers' blunder in bringing them to our shores, 
and make sure that another such situation does not 
arise. 

Yet just such another situation might arise if the 
Chinese or Japanese or Hindus were to be allowed to 
enter our country in any considerable numbers. It is 
not, again, that these are inferior races. The Chinese 
and Hindus were civilized while our Caucasian an- 
cestors were still savages; and the Japanese have 
already shown a capacity for modern methods that 
everyone admires. It is likely that within a compara- 
tively short time, as history goes, these nations will 
all be as civilized as our own. 

But do we want to intermarry with these races? 
Are we sure that it would be wise? Certainly most 
of our people would vigorously repudiate the idea; 
and these Orientals would form a separate race in our 
midst, not so ignorant, and — let us hope — not so ill- 
treated as the negroes have been, but still aliens, 
separate, and made to feel their separateness. 
Candidly, we cannot count on our courtesy to such 
an alien race living in our midst. Race-prejudice 
rests on deep-seated human instincts, and it is 



88 EQUALITY 

Utopian to expect it to disappear. It is far wiser to 
avoid situations that inflame it. We can respect and 
admire the Orientals in their own homes; we can 
gladly learn from them and have a happy interchange 
of students and scholars, travellers and technicians. 
But occasions for friction and race-wars will be best 
averted by restrictions which will, in general, keep 
each race to its own continent. 

The policy of Oriental exclusion, then, does not, 
or should not, rest on any denial of the doctrine of 
human equality. It rests on the obvious fact that the 
hybridizing of races, once done, can never be undone. 
And the complementary fact that another unassimi- 
lated race in America would be a constant source of 
friction and a danger to democracy. These sources of 
friction we must be wise enough to avoid, whenever 
possible. 

^With the two races physically on different sides of 
the ocean, we can develop our common national and 
international interests. But with any considerable 
immigration to this side, causes of friction would 
inevitably develop. They might be our fault, but we 
could not prevent them. Our people have learned 
their racial lessons in a dangerous school. . . . We 
have dealt unjustly with the Negro and he submits. 
We have dealt unjustly with the Indian and he is 
dead. If we have many Japanese, we shall not know 
how to deal otherwise than unjustly with them, and 
very properly they will not submit. The only real 
safety is in separation." 

With the various Caucasian races ("white men") 
the situation we have discussed will not arise, or, at 
least, be permanent ; for they are all assimilable, and 
rapidly being assimilated into the American stock. 
But the question may still be raised whether for other 



EACIAL EQUALITY 89 

reasons some further restriction of immigration is 
not desirable. 

There seems to be no abstract right of the inhab- 
itants of one country to emigrate to another. If for 
any reason it seems best for the general welfare, our 
people may properly reserve to themselves the right 
to say who shall come and who shall not come to live 
here. But there is much to be said for the policy of a 
comparatively unrestricted immigration. It is diffi- 
cult to devise laws that will shut out the less desirable 
and admit the more desirable immigrants — except for 
the exclusion of people of obviously sub-normal 
mentality and those suffering from contagious or 
inheritable diseases, or likely to become a public 
charge, or likely to indulge in crime or flagrant vice. 
The illiteracy test now in force keeps out a good many 
who have had no educational opportunities, but is no 
fair test of mental capacity or race-value. 

It is doubtful if, as is so often assumed, the people 
from southern and eastern Europe are really inferior 
on the average in their potentialities to the immi- 
grants from northern and western Europe. It is 
certainly true that they have ideals and ideas to 
bring us, as well as muscle. The cessation of immi- 
gration during the war brought about a shortage of 
unskilled labor particularly irksome to the owners 
of factories and mines, but of moment to us all. Why 
not welcome their brains and brawn, rejoice in the 
bettering of their condition over here, in the relief 
to overcrowded districts of Europe, and in the return 
flux of ideals and ideas to the lands from which they 
came and with which they usually remain in touch? 

In answer, we may say that while there is any 
doubt as to the average mental capacity of a given 
race, we may well hesitate to admit great numbers of 



90 EQUALITY 

that race into the melting pot out of which is to come 
the American stock of the future. More clearly, the 
admission of great numbers of ignorant and un- 
trained foreigners makes it very hard to raise the 
standard of living not only of their own families but 
of the American laborers with whom they compete. 
Many of these immigrants are willing to work for 
low wages, because they were used, in the Old World, 
to poor living conditions. It is difficult to organize 
men of many different races into unions which can 
demand a living wage and proper working conditions. 
The presence of multitudes of these servile laborers is 
welcome to the owners of some of our factories and 
mines, but is undesirable from the public point of 
view. 

Apart from this economic situation and a possible 
eugenic disadvantage in certain racial mixtures, the 
immigrant-problem is, as we said of the negro- 
problem, not so much their problem as ours. It is 
the problem of treating the immigrants fairly, pro- 
tecting them from exploitation, giving them decent 
housing conditions, facilities for education, and in- 
fluences that make for moral upbuilding rather than 
for demoralization. It is, unhappily, by no means 
always true that the influence of America upon immi- 
grants is wholesome. Many of them degenerate 
morally here. The children of immigrants form, more 
than any other class, the supply for our criminals and 
prostitutes. The traditions of the immigrants them- 
selves persist sufficiently to keep them "straight," for 
the most part. But we do not take enough pains to 
see to it that their children have American ideals to 
take their place. 

The two traditional American attitudes toward the 



RACIAX EQUALITY 91 

immigrant may be illustrated by the following 
stanzas, by Bryant and Aldrich respectively : 

"There's freedom at thy gates and rest 
For earth's down-trodden and opprest, 
A shelter for the hunted head, 
For the starved laborer toil and bread." 

"O Liberty, white Goddess ! is it well 
To leave the gates unguarded ? On thy breast 
Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of fate. 
Lift the down-trodden, but with hands of steel 
Stay those who to thy sacred portals come 
To waste the gifts of freedom." 

Neither of these attitudes, however, is very largely 
pertinent to our present problem. The European 
countries are now, for the most part, as democratic 
as ours ; there is little oppression from which we need 
to succor them. There is poverty, partly the result 
of ignorance, largely now the result of the War. But 
there is much work to be done over there, hands are 
needed; to bring millions of the ablest-bodied over 
here is to rob Europe of the strength that she needs 
just now more than we. 

On the other hand, there are few who come to these 
shores with any destructive or anti-social intent. 
Almost all of our immigrants come eagerly, ready to 
love and seiwe America, happy at the prospect of 
being Americans. All they need is the right treat- 
ment to make them patriotic and useful citizens. If 
other results accrue it is more apt to be our fault 
than theirs. 

The plan of restricting the number of immigrants 
to be admitted from any race or people annually to a 
small percentage of the people of that race already 
here, is an excellent plan. It rests on the sound ob- 



92 EQUALITY 

servation that immigrants are for the most part 
received into an environment of their own former 
compatriots. Too many newcomers cannot be assimi- 
lated; they remain foreigners in our midst and pro- 
duce, temporarily, the sort of undesirable social 
situation that the presence of unassimilable races 
permanently produces. Moreover, this plan, with- 
out discriminating against any particular race, and 
so offending national susceptibilities, automatically 
checks the immigration from those peoples that are 
most alien to our existing American stock. 

But in addition to our immigration laws, we must 
cultivate the temper of fair-mindedness and hospi- 
tality toward newcomers. Aliens in our land should 
be regarded as guests of the nation, and should be 
treated as courteously as we wish our own compatriots 
to be treated when they reside abroad. Nothing is 
more offensively un-American than the epithets such 
as "dago," '^sheeny," and the like that are so com- 
monly applied to these foreigners. To any who still 
have a contemptuous attitude such as is expressed by 
these words we should recommend the reading of 
Kobert Haven Schauffler's noble poem, entitled Scum 
o" the Earth. Or the words which a school-principal 
used in rebuking some pupils for discourtesy to for- 
eigners : "I want you boys and girls, especially those 
that go to the Catholic Church, always to remember 
that the Pope is a dago; and you who don't go to the 
Catholic Church might bear in mind that America 
was discovered by a dago. And I don't want any one 
of you to forget that Jesus himself was a sheeny." 

An Irish believer in Equality used to say, "One man 
is as good as another — if not better!" The true 
American spirit is to say that these immigrants who 
come to us to live with us, work for us, share our 



RACIAL EQUALITY 93 

common life, are as good as we — if not better. 
America has been made by such as they — men who 
were poor, ignorant, hard-working, but full of energy 
and hope. Our fathers were probably such as they — 
of another race and speech, perhaps, with other ideas 
and traditions behind them, but essentially the same 
in their belief in progress and democracy, in liberty 
and equality for all. The glory and hope of America 
lies in the fusion of races here going on; from that 
blending of types, if accelerated by mutual kindness 
and forbearance and understanding, there may 
spring a race, the American race of the future, with 
a destiny beyond that of any race the world has 
yet known. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Booker Washington, Up from Slavery. 

W. E. B. Du Bois, Darkwater; The Souls of Blade Folk. 

P. L. Ha worth, America in Ferment, Chap. V. 

J. M. Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction. 

H. J. Seligmann, The Negro Faces America. 

Stephen Graham, The Soul of John Brown. 

H. M. F. H. Jackson, A Century of Dishonor. 

Frances Kellor, Immigration and the Future. 

H. G. Wells, The Future in America, Chap. IX. 

Mary Antin, They Who Knock at Our Gates. 

T. S. Adams and H. L. Sumner, Labor Problems, Chap. III. 

Jenks and Lauck, The Immigration Problem.. 

H. P. Fairchild, Immigration. 

E. A. Steiner, The Immigrant Tide; On the Trail of the 

Immigrant. 

F. J. Warne, The Immigrant Invasion. 

C. S. Cooper, American Ideals, Chap. VIII. 

D. S. Lescohier, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 123, p. 483. 

W. E. Weyl, in Harper's Magazine, vol. 129, p. 615. (Reprinted, 
abridged, in Fulton, op. cit., p. 47.) 



CHAPTER X 

EDUCATION FOR ALL 

Of all the aspects of equality in America there is 
none in which we have taken more pride than in our 
universal free education. Our educational system is 
crude as yet, and only in the making. But America 
has always believed passionately in education. Our 
rich men have vied with one another in founding 
colleges and universities, poor men have sacrificed 
much that their children might have schooling. 
Nearly a century ago Cobden wrote, "The univer- 
sality of education in the United States is probably 
more calculated than all other things to accelerate 
their progress towards a superior rank of civilization 
and power." 

It has been said that the typical American phrase 
is, "I want to know!" Certainly the typical Ameri- 
can does want to know, believes, indeed, in what a 
recent essayist has called "the moral obligation to be 
intelligent." He believes in the educability of com- 
mon men, and in the importance for the common 
welfare that the common man be educated. Washing- 
ton, in his Farewell Address, bade his countiymen 
promote, "as an object of primary importance, in- 
stitutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In 
proportion as the structure of a government gives 
force to public opinion, it is essential that public 
opinion should be enlightened." 

94 



EDUCATION FOE ALL 95 

It is, indeed, true that the mistakes of democracy 
have always been due, essentially, to the ignorance of 
the people, the lack of a widespread enlightenment on 
political and social matters. The one source of fear 
for the Republic is the apprehension lest our people 
are not intelligent and well-informed enough to meet 
successfully the exigencies that may arise. The an- 
swer of America to these fears must be, ^ Ve will make 
the people intelligent and well-informed.'' The motto 
graven on the exterior of the Boston Public Library 
should be stamped upon our hearts: ^^The Common- 
wealth requires the education of the people as the 
safeguard of order and liberty." 

In purely financial terms, education pays. The 
boy who stays in school until he is eighteen has re- 
ceived, on the average, by the time he is twenty-five, 
two thousand dollars more than the boy who left 
school at fourteen, and is earning at twenty-five, 
nearly a thousand dollars a year more. From this age 
onward his salary is likely to rise still more rapidly, 
while that of the boy who left school at fourteen is 
likely to rise but little. 

A similar ratio holds between community-earnings 
and the general education. Where education is 
longest and most widespread, there is industrial 
efficiency and national wealth. The backwardness of 
Russia, of Turkey, of Mexico is fundamentally due to 
lack of education. In our own country the produc- 
tivity and wealth of our several States is in a pretty 
constant ratio to the amount of schooling of their 
inhabitants. For example, the average schooling 
given, some years ago, in Massachusetts was about 
seven years, and the average daily productiveness of 
the citizens of that State was eighty-five cents. For 
Tennessee in the same year the average schooling was 



96 EQUALITY 

about three years and the average daily productive- 
ness thirty-eight cents. 

There is a certain tendency among our "self-made" 
men and their admirers to belittle the value of 
scliooling. And we must admit that a boy of excep- 
tional force has often, when favored by opportunity, 
made his way to wealth and eminence without the 
advantages of formal education. This was oftener 
possible, however, in the frontier and formative con- 
ditions of American life than it is now. More and 
more the successful man must be an expert, must 
depend upon exact knowledge rather than solely upon 
personal force and cleverness. A study of Who^s 
Who in America reveals the fact that "out of the 
nearly 5,000,000 uneducated men and women in 
America, only 31 have been sufficiently successful in 
any kind of work to obtain a place among the 8,000 
leaders catalogued in this book. Out of 33,000,000 
people with as much as a common-school education, 
808 were able to win a place in the list, while out of 
only 2,000,000 with high-school training, 1,245 have 
manifested this marked efficiency, and out of 1,000,- 
000 with college or university training, 5,768 have 
merited this distinction." That is to say, a man with 
college education is eight hundred times as likely 
to become a notable factor in his country's life as an 
unschooled man. 

We have spoken only of the more conspicuous fruits 
of education. They are such as to justify the words 
of Chancellor Kent: "A parent who sends his son 
into the world uneducated and without skill in any 
art or science does a great injury to mankind as well 
as to his own family ; for he defrauds the community 
of a useful citizen and bequeaths to it a nuisance." 
Far the greater number of our paupers and prosti- 



EDUCATION FOE ALL 97 

tutes and criminals come from the ranks of the un- 
educated. Victor Hugo once said that every school 
that is opened causes a prison to be closed. A Sing 
Sing prisoner recently declared, "Most of the in- 
mates of the prisons are there because they could not 
compete successfully with others. They did not know 
how to meet the conditions of free life.'^ 

But in addition to these social aspects of educa- 
tion, its value in enhancing the personal life should 
not be forgotten. Education gives interests^ adds to 
our resources, helps us to an innocent and profitable 
use of our leisure. Nothing is more pathetic than 
the waste of leisure hours on the part of men and 
women who have never cultivated a taste for read- 
ing, for art or music, or any of the higher activities 
of the mind. "The educated man is one whose life 
is characterized by increasing richness, safety, and 
control." He is "at home in the world, has at least 
a part of it under his intelligent control, and has 
opened up to him new avenues of intellectual and 
emotional enjoyment." 

The educated man is an intelligent consumer. He 
is not the dupe of unscrupulous advertisers and deal- 
ers; he knows what is good from what is shoddy or 
inferior. He is safe from the wiles of quacks and 
charlatans — notoriously numerous in America. He is 
relatively free from superstition and prejudice. His 
life has range and variety and dignity. 

It is important to emphasize this enrichment and 
safeguarding of the personal life that results from a 
liberal education, because there is a strain in Ameri- 
can thought and character that looks upon "culture" 
as impractical and useless. We are, in general, of the 
"motor type" ; our men are happiest "in the harness", 
and are apt to be lost and resourceless when on a va- 



98 EQUALITY 

cation. A contemporary French critic finds that 
"the American concerns himself but little with cul- 
ture, considering it a luxury good for a few dilettanti, 
but which does not ^pay', and which, as such, appears 
somewhat suspicious to the practical Yankee mind." 
A recent American writer expresses it thus: "We 
have few or no social habits that encourage the life 
of reflection. The average American, especially in 
the great industrial centers, is catapulted from the 
cradle to the grave in the mad hurly-burly of a head- 
long civilization that never pauses to get its bearings 
or to ask the meaning of life.'' 

But even vocational education has been neglected 
here, as compared with the extent to which it has been 
developed in several European countries. Munich, 
a city of 500,000 inhabitan::s, had, in 1912, fifty-two 
vocational schools, with nearly 17,000 pupils. Berlin 
had 40,000 students in trade and commerical schools. 
The small state of Saxony had 115 technical insti- 
tutes. France, Denmark, Norway, Great Britain, and 
other countries, have established systems of industrial 
and commercial education that surpass, in per capita 
extent and efficiency, our still rudimentary and frag- 
mentary national system. A commission of eminent 
German scientists, visiting this country shortly be- 
fore the outbreak of the Great War, reported to their 
government that they need have no fear of American 
competition in trade and manufacture, that we were 
complacently relying upon our unexhausted natural 
resources and neglecting to train our youth in indus- 
trial and commercial efficiency. The fact that the 
German technique was misused, at the beck of a 
selfish military clique, should not blind us to the ex- 
cellence of the technical education that Germany 
had established for her citizens. 



EDUCATION FOB ALL 99 

Every vocation is becoming more scientific. The 
world needs its work well done, and could have it 
far better done than it ever has. Apprenticeship and 
home-instruction are inadequate for the new era. 
Happily, the Federal Government is awakening to the 
need, and is now encouraging the States by appropri- 
ating federal funds for inaugurating and improv- 
ing vocational education in the public schools. There 
is hope that we may yet realize our traditional aspira- 
tion toward an educational system that shall give 
to every boy and girl in the land access to the world's 
store of experience, and a training that will make 
them all self-respecting and skilled artisans — whether 
with hand or brain — at some work that has a useful 
place in the national life. 

We must frankly admit that we have yet a long 
way to go. A recent government bulletin reveals the 
fact that we are eighth on the list of countries ranked 
with respect to the proportion of literacy among their 
inhabitants. Our illiteracy rate is close to 7 per cent 
for people over ten years old. The rate in Switzer- 
land is one half of one per cent, in Germany the pre- 
war rate was three one-hundredths of one per cent. 
Of the young men of draft age during the War, some 
700,000 were found to be unable to read and write; 
our total adult illiterate population is about ten 
times that number, besides many more millions who 
can barely read and seldom do. Secretary Lane re- 
cently computed that this illiteracy means an annual 
economic loss to the country of |825,000,000. 

When it comes to higher education our relative 
standing is equally disappointing. Some years ago, 
when comparative statistics were available, there 
were, for each ten thousand of our population, twenty 
students in our colleges and universities. At the same 



100 EQUALITY 

time there were fifty-six students per ten thousand in- 
habitants in British colleges and universities, sixty- 
five in Germany, seventy-seven in Italy, eighty-one 
in France, and a hundred and seventy-eight in 
Switzerland. 

The fact is, in spite of much recent improvement in 
our educational system, we are not spending nearly 
enough for education. The rise in prices during the 
War has made our educational expenditures prac- 
tically far less than a few years ago. Even before 
the War we were spending much less in proportion to 
the national wealth than in earlier days. Everywhere 
people grumble about high taxes, and fail to realize 
that education is the best possible investment. Nearly 
twice as much money is spent in this country upon 
tobacco as upon education ; while the money saved by 
the prohibition of alcoholic beverages, if applied to 
education, would treble its efficiency. 

It is a well known fact that teachers are among the 
poorest paid wage-earners in the country ; in spite of 
recent salary-increases, the figures for the average 
salaries of teachers in even the most advanced States 
are too low, while in the more backward States they 
are disgraceful. There is no work more important 
than that of moulding the minds of the young, no 
career that calls for more talent or more careful 
preparation. But the vocation has become a by-word, 
for its niggardly rewards ; able young men and women 
are turning from it in disgust. Unless radical im- 
provement is made, our children will more and more 
be taught by the incompetent and the ambitionless ; 
positions will have to be increasingly filled by those 
who lack the proper temperament and training. And 
this when our country is far richer than ever before — 
incomparably the richest country in the world ! 



EDUCATION FOR ALL 101 

Nothing should satisfy us, nothing will fulfill the 
visions of the founders of the Republic, short of the 
best educational system, the highest educational at- 
tendance, and the lowest illiteracy rate, in the world. 
Indeed, there is no excuse for illiteracy at all; it 
should be stamped out like a plague. There is no ex- 
cuse even for the stopping of the schooling of any 
boy or girl, save in exceptional cases, short of high- 
school graduation. Nothing less than that is conson- 
ant with our ideal of Equality of opportunity. Yet 
as things are, the average schooling of Americans 
lasts but a little over six years — and the school 
"years" are often very short. The average schooling! 
That means, since so many go on through the eight 
years of the elementary school, the four years of high 
school, and the four years of college, that very many 
of our children have considerably less than six years' 
schooling. As a matter of fact, a little over half of the 
children who enter the elementary schools reach the 
fourth grade; something over a quarter reach the 
eighth grade; about an eighth get to high school, 
and less than a twentieth graduate from high school. 
About two per cent go to some college or higher insti- 
tution of learning, and only a fraction of those gradu- 
ate therefrom. 

To relieve the gloom of these statistics we should 
add that there are many hopeful signs on the educa- 
tional horizon. The number of pupils in high schools 
is increasing far faster than the increase in the popu- 
lation. And most of our colleges and universities are 
badly overcrowded. The national Bureau of Educa- 
tion is doing a great deal to raise standards and to 
encourage the extension of opportunities. It is 
earnestly to be hoped that Congress will authorize 
bigger and bigger appropriations from the national 



102 EQUALITY 

treasury, to be used by the several States on condition 
of their appropriating equal or larger amounts. Our 
educational system is very decentralized, as com- 
pared with some European systems; and our plan, 
that throws the burden of organization and finance 
upon the local communities, has its advantages. But 
in the manner above indicated, and by its constant 
supervision and advice, the Federal Government can 
do much to equalize the now very unequal educational 
facilities of the different sections of the country, and 
to raise the general level of efficiency. 

Among the most important tendencies is the move- 
ment which is opening the school-houses to the adult 
population. More and more the schools are becoming 
community-centers, from which radiate educational, 
cultural, socializing influences of the highest import- 
ance. We are realizing that education is something 
not merely for the child but for every citizen. Farm- 
ers are being taught, through the public schools and 
State universities, to raise bigger crops; craftsmen 
are taught to improve the technique of their profes- 
sion ; housewives are taught better methods of cooking 
and canning, groups of men and women are taught 
a readier use of the English language, are instructed 
in current events, and in the various branches, his- 
tory, economics, sociology, and the like, that will help 
to make them more intelligent voters. This "exten- 
sion" work of the schools and Universities is only in 
its infancy, — but it is gathering momentum ; we may 
hope eventually to see practically the whole nation 
at school. 

The old idea was that only the select few were cap- 
able of intelligence or deserving of education. The 
American idea was that practically all the people 
would respond to education and become intelligent 



EDUCATION FOE ALL 103 

citizens. This idea is corroborated by modern sociol- 
ogy. Professor Lester Ward, for example, in Ms well- 
known work on Applied Sociology, affirms that ^^capa- 
city is latent everywhere. It is opportunity that 
is rare, not ability.'' As it is, "only ten per cent of 
[our human] resources have been developed. An- 
other ten per cent are somewhat developed. There 
remain eighty per cent as yet almost undeveloped." 

Education is really the fundamental human need, 
and the one great hope for the future. The task of 
progress is not so much in devising progressive laws, 
or a just and efficient industrial and political order, 
it is in getting people to want the laws, to realize the 
defects in our present social order and the means by 
which they can be remedied. The danger to America 
consists far less in any lack of patriotism or loyalty 
among its citizens, in any destructive intent of "Bol- 
shevists" or "reds"; the danger to America can be 
summed up in one word — ignorance. Let the people 
know the facts, understand the situations with which 
they have to deal, let their minds be trained to think 
clearly and dispassionately, to weigh the evidence pro 
and con, let them be taught to appreciate the mean- 
ing and value of old institutions, and at the same 
time to realize the necessity for continual criticism 
and the application of new ideas — ^in short, let them 
be truly educated, and we may breathe freely when 
we think of the future of the Kepublic. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

R. W. Emerson, The American Scholar. 

C. S. Cooper, American Ideals, Chap. YI. 

C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, Chapters XII, 

XIII, 
A. S. Draper, American Education. 
C. W. Eliot, Education for Efficienci;, 



104 EQUALITY 

Scott Nearing, The New Education. 

G. Kerschensteiner, Schools and the Nation; Education for 

Citizenship. 
Irving King, Education for Social Efficiency. 
G. H. Betts, Social Principles of Education. 
K. S. Bourne, The Gary Schools. 
John Dewey, Schools of Tomorrow. 
C. A. Scott, Social Education. 
H. S. Person, Industrial Education. 
A. Flexner, The American College. 
J. W. Hudson, The College and New America. 
Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America. 



CHAPTER XI 

HEALTH FOR ALL 

It is only in recent years that health has come to be 
thought of as in any considerable degree the concern 
of the State. In fact, our fathers thought very little 
about health. When half of their children died in 
infancy, when their wives showed the marks of age 
at forty, when epidemics decimated the population, 
they resigned themselves to the workings of a myster- 
ious Providence. Physical exercise most of them got 
in abundance, sanitation was less necessary in the 
sparsely settled communities of the pioneer days, and 
so the evils of a careless individualism were less 
serious than now. Today we are made to realize that 
no man liveth to himself alone; that individual ill- 
health is a community loss and a community danger ; 
that a large part of the illness and premature death 
of our people is preventable, and that it is the duty 
of the community to prevent it. In the words of Dr. 
Thomas Wood of Columbia University, ^^Better health 
is to a striking extent a purchasable commodity ; and 
national economy demands that we purchase it.'' 

Certainly there is no more important natural right 
than the right to health and long life. And an organ- 
ization of society which practically denies that right 
to a large part of the population is seriously incon- 
sistent with our ideal of Equality. Not only does 
health constitute itself a large part of the intrinsic 
worth of life, it means opportunity for range of ex- 

105 



106 EQUALITY 

perience, and for the formation of those qualities of 
character that come through a rich and normal life- 
experience. Health is one of the most important 
factors that make for morality; bodily depression 
warps the judgment, causes irritability and discour- 
agement, lowers resistance to temptation, weakens the 
will. It affects immediately the interest in one's work 
and the quality, as well as quantity of work done. 
As Horace Mann, our great educator, wrote, ^^All 
through the life of a feeble-bodied man, his path is 
lined with memory's gravestones which mark the 
spots where noble enterprises perished for lack of 
physical vigor to embody them in deeds." From a 
purely utilitarian and financial point of view, the 
conservation of health is of extreme importance. 

As compared with most other peoples, the Ameri- 
can average of health and longevity is good. Yet 
thirty million American wage earners lose from sick- 
ness every year an average of nine days each, a wage 
loss, at |3.50 a day, of nearly a billion dollars, besides 
a cost for treatment of perhaps |200,000,000. Three 
hundred thousand babies die annually in this coun- 
try; it is estimated that at least half of these deaths 
in infancy could be easily prevented. Tuberculosis 
alone costs the country |350,000,000 a year, and 
malaria $100,000,000. Both of these diseases are pre- 
ventable by known means. The annual death rate 
for the United States as a whole has been, in recent 
years, about 14 per thousand population. Some 
States have rates as high as 16 or 17, in normal years, 
and some cities have rates over 20 per thousand. On 
the other hand, some States have rates around 10 ; the 
State of Washington has kept close to 8. Australia 
has kept close to 10, New Zealand between 9 and 10. 
With proper care, the rate might be lowered through- 



HEALTH FOR ALL 107 

out the country to the level attained in these more 
advanced communities. To lower it from 14 to 10 
per thousand would mean an annual saving of 400,000 
lives. So Secretary of Commerce Redfield was hardly 
too sanguine when he declared that ^^we can save the 
lives of 500,000 people a year if we choose.'' 

The two prime causes of this needlessly high death- 
rate are poverty and ignorance. The importance of 
the latter factor is revealed by the fact that while 
in our cities there has been in general a marked de- 
cline in the death-rate in recent years, the rate in the 
country, where hygienic knowledge has been less dis- 
seminated, remains close to the older levels. Country 
folks as a whole pay less attention to ventilation, and 
to the provision of a normal and wholesome diet. 
There is much malnutrition found in rural districts, 
and a startling ignorance of the proper care of chil- 
dren. Country people are more apt to ignore defects 
of the eyes, ears, teeth, or throat. A recent investiga- 
tion sums up its conclusions in the following words : 
^^The standards of living on the American farm, when 
tested by the accepted principles of physiology, sani- 
tation, and hygiene, are alarmingly defective." 

In some parts of the South, conditions are intoler- 
able. Dr. Frederic T. Gates of the General Educa- 
tion Board, writing in 1916, estimated that there were 
two million children in the South between six and 
sixteen years of age stunted physically and mentally 
by the hookworm disease, while many thousands died 
annually from its effects. School-inspectors have in 
some districts found over half of the school children 
defective or more or less disabled from other prevent- 
able or curable ailments. 

The effect of poverty upon the death-rate can be 
clearly seen in available statistics. A bulletin issued 



108 EQUALITY 

by the Children's Bureau in Washington shows the 
following relation between income and infant death- 
rate: 



Income $ 450 and under, infant death rate 242 
" 649 " " " " " 174 

« 849 " " " " " 162 

" 1,049 " " " " " 125 

" 1,250 and over " " " 68 



Poverty means under-nutrition, lack of proper liv- 
ing-conditions, lack of care during illness, and, often, 
over-work and worry, which greatly lessen resistance 
to disease. Dr. Wood states that one child in every 
five in the United States is suffering from insufficient 
nutrition. Dr. William Emerson, a Boston authority, 
recently reckoned the number even higher. In 1917, 
medical examination discovered 160,000 children in 
the high schools alone of New York City who "show 
the stigmata of prolonged undernourishment.^' 

The parents of these undernourished children 
usually age quickly, being often past their prime at 
forty or forty-five, whereas professional men and the 
employing class very commonly keep efficient and 
hearty until seventy. Professor Lester Ward, in his 
Applied Sociology, shows that the average longevity 
of the rich is practically double that of the poor. 
John Spargo finds the death-rate among the "well-to- 
do" about 10 per 1000, among the best-paid laborers 
15, among the lower paid laborers 35. These divisions 
and figures are, of course, more or less arbitrary; 
but the general situation is unquestioned. The poor 
have far from an equal chance for life and health. 

A recent federal investigation in Montclair, N. J. 
disclosed an average infant mortality of 84 per thou- 
sand. Among the babies of business or professional 



HEALTH FOR ALL 109 

men the rate was 41 ; among the higher-paid laborers 
the rate was 74 ; among the low-paid laborers, it was 
130. In the tenement district of Johnstown, Pa., the 
rate, recently, was 271. Statistics compiled a decade 
ago revealed the fact that the children of the lower- 
paid workers weighed, at sixteen, nineteen and a half 
pounds less, on the average, and were three and three- 
quarters inches lower in stature, than the children of 
the well-to-do. Miss Esther Lovejoy, in Democracy 
in Reconstruction, draws this obvious conclusion: 
"The great predisposing cause of premature death is 
poverty. . . . Any social scheme that insures a fair 
standard of living will reduce the death-rate. . . . 
We should have not only minimum wages, upon which 
men and women can live without working themselves 
to death, but we should have minimum standards of 
living, below which human beings should not be per- 
mitted to fall. ... It is self-evident that conditions 
that condemn millions of people to premature death 
are public nuisances that should be legally abated 
without loss of time.'' 

Surely every child that is born an American should 
have the best possible chance for health and long life. 
If the children of the poor die in great numbers, or 
grow up stunted, coarsened, dull of mind and sickly 
of body, society has failed in its duty. As Mr. Walter 
Weyl forcibly puts it, "Every preventable death is a 
reflection upon the good will or the intelligence of the 
community which suffers it." "On a mere calculation 
of dollars and cents, it is a foolish extravagance to 
allow a baby to die for lack of a few dollars' worth of 
pure milk, or to allow an expensively bred workman 
to die for lack of a few hundred dollars spent in pro- 
tection and prevention. But we do not yet realize 
that it is we as a community who pay for these deaths, 



110 EQUALITY 

although we only too clearly realize that it is we who 
pay for their prevention." 

England and America have attained their indus- 
trial pre-eminence at the cost of the lives and health 
of their workers. The appallingly large percentage 
of volunteers and drafted men rejected because of 
poor physical condition in both countries shows, more 
than anything else, the result of the working-condi- 
tions in our factories and mills and mines, and the 
living conditions of the poorer half of our population. 
Tuberculosis will always be with us while we have 
congested slums. Men below weight, under-developed 
muscularly, and weak in resistance to disease, will 
always exist in great numbers while they are thought 
of as mere "hands," to be hired at the lowest rate for 
which they will work, and crowded into uncomfort- 
able and unsanitary homes. 

Many movements for the amelioration of this shock- 
ing situation are under way. Wages of some of the 
poorest paid workers have been raised. Factories are 
becoming cleaner, lighter, less dusty, better ventil- 
ated. Housing laws are making impossible the worst 
types of earlier tenements. Bad as conditions are in 
New York City today, the tenement-house legislation 
of recent years has had a large part in the reduction 
of that city's death-rate from nearly 19 to 13.5 per 
thousand. Pure food and pure milk laws have like- 
wise been of great value. Motherhood classes are 
teaching ignorant women not to expose milk to air, 
heat, and flies, and averting many other perils from 
their babies. 

Most important of all, perhaps, is the extension of 
physical education in the public schools. School 
nurses are discovering defects and contagious diseases 
in the children, and are explaining to their parents 



HEALTH FOR ALL 111 

the necessity of treatment. The annual physical ex- 
amination of school children will soon, it is to be 
hoped, become universal. It is said that from twenty 
to thirty per cent of our school children have defects 
of vision — which often result in headaches, stomach 
troubles, or nervousness. A smaller number have de- 
fects of hearing, a great many have nose and throat 
troubles, and perhaps nine out of ten have defective 
teeth — often the obscure cause of serious ailments 
which appear in later life. 

In addition to these periodic examinations, with 
the correction of defects revealed, and to the constant 
watchfulness of the school nurses, the public school 
children are being trained in personal health-habits 
and taught the principles of modern hygiene and sani- 
tation. Clean, airy, sunny, well-ventilated school- 
houses are an objectJesson of the first importance. 
Some States go further and provide for physical 
training, in the form of supervised exercises, for 
every pupil. In such ways a new generation is grow- 
ing up with a keener realization of the importance 
and the attainability of health. The notable result 
attained through the teaching of the evils of alcohol- 
ism in the schools shows what advances in the 
general health may be expected to eventuate from this 
education of the children. They will not be content to 
endow hospitals to care for the sick; they will see 
to it that the causes leading to illness are radically 
diminished. 

In addition to the work in the schools, various 
agencies are engaged in improving the national 
health. The United States Public Health Service 
controls the quarantine stations up and down our 
coasts, and has a splendid record of efficiency in 
stamping out plagues that might easily have assumed 



112 EQUALITY 

very serious proportions. It also maintains a number 
of laboratories for the investigation of diseases, and 
maintains a careful inspection of the private estab- 
lishments that sell serums, anti-toxins, and vaccines. 
It has conducted sanitary surveys in several States 
and secured the passage of many ordinances that reg- 
ulate the disposal of waste, the safeguarding of the 
water-supply, the prevention of fly-breeding and other 
hygienic measures. 

Another very efflcient organization for the improve- 
ment of health, both in this country and in various 
foreign countries, is the Rockefeller Foundation, 
whose annual reports show remarkable results. In 
particular, it is waging a campaign for the eradica- 
tion of yellow fever and malaria, with the hookworm 
disease and tuberculosis and infantile paralysis also 
the object of vigorous onslaughts. It is fostering 
medical education and research, and in various other 
ways fighting to lower the death-rate. 

The National Tuberculosis Association has dem- 
onstrated, especially in its work at Framingham, 
Massachusetts, that that widespread disease can be 
almost entirely eradicated. The town of Framing- 
ham, by its help, raised its annual per capita expendi- 
ture for public health from 39 cents to |1. Before 
the experiment was made the death-rate in Framing- 
ham was about 16 or 17 per thousand, and the infant 
death-rate about 85 or 90. The first year's attack 
upon the causes of ill-health reduced these rates to 
about 12 and 69 respectively. The following year 
(1918) was the year of the influenza epidemic. But 
the figures for 1919 show a retention of the gain. 
Deaths directly due to tuberculosis have entirely 
ceased. 

In these various ways the opportunity for health 



HEALTH FOR ALL 113 

is being extended to more and more of our citizens, 
and we may hope to see eventually something ap- 
proaching a real equality in this respect. In the 
meantime, health insurance is of great importance 
in enabling the poor to deal with illness. Even if the 
present number of something like three million people 
seriously ill at every given moment in this country 
is considerably lowered in the near future, there 
will still be need of provision for those who cannot 
afford proper doctoring, proper food and care for 
their sick, and cannot afford the loss of income caused 
by the illness. Hundreds of thousands are cast into 
serious financial straits every year through the ill- 
ness and the death of wage-earners. Most of these 
people cannot afford the premiums which private 
companies charge for life and disability insurance. 
Indeed, these premiums are usually far too high — 
more than half the money spent on them going, in 
some cases, to operating expenses and profits, leaving 
less than half to be paid in insurance. 

Whether health and disability insurance should be 
left in private hands, or managed by the State, or by 
the several industries, can not be here discussed. 
But in some way the vicious circle must be broken 
whereby poverty leads to ill-health and ill-health 
increases poverty. A wise insurance system will do 
more than keep the sick and their families from des- 
titution, it will include early diagnosis and advice, 
the insistence upon proper hygienic precautions, and 
the education of the community in the prevention of 
illness. 

In such ways, and in ways yet to be devised by the 
coming generation, we may hope not only to see 
America made the healthiest nation on earth, but to 
see health and long life the perquisites of every 



114 EQUALITY 

American, the humblest as well as the most gifted 
and most highly rewarded. This would be but the 
logical carrying out of our founders' dreams of Equal- 
ity, rudely upset by the conditions of a close-com- 
pacted industrial society, but secured and made per- 
manent by the vigorous efforts of our people. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Durant Drake, Prohlems of Conduct, Chap. XY. 

L. H. Gulick, The Efficient Life. 

Woods Hutchinson, Handbook of Health. 

C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America. Chapters IV, 
V, XIV. 

Lawrence Veiller, Housing Reform. 

Jacob Riis, The Battle with the Slum^. 

Jl. A. Woods, The City Wilderness. 

W. H. Allen, Civics and Health. 

T. C. Horsfelt, The Improvement of the Dwellings and Sur- 
roundings of the People. 

J. S. Gibbon, Infant Welfare Centers. 

L. D. Cruikshank, School Clinics at Home and Abroad. 

Florence Kelley, Modern Industry, Chap. II. 

Charles Zueblin, American Municipal Progress, revised ed.. 
Chap. VII. 

W. A. Brend, Health and the State. 

H. W. Hill, The New Public Health, 



CHAPTER XII 

WORK FOR ALL 

Another corollary of the American ideal of Equality- 
is the demand that every citizen shall be a worker, 
whether with hand or brain ; that neither the posses- 
sion of wealth or position, or the possession of a rov- 
ing and vagabond disposition, exempts any one from 
the duty of contributing his share to the productive 
work of the nation. In the Old World from which 
our founders came, there had always been a leisure 
class, that looked upon labor as menial, debasing, 
ignoble; a gentleman might be a warrior, showing 
prowess in killing, he might be an employer, exploit- 
ing others' labors, but he must not handle tools him- 
self, or earn his living by the sweat of his brow. 
Because the life of gentlemen and ladies was a life of 
leisure and lazy trifling, the Heaven pictured by wist- 
ful souls of all classes came to be dreamed of as a 
place where all work should have an end; and labor 
was looked upon as the primal curse. 

This, however, is not in accordance with the in- 
stincts of normal human nature, which finds one of 
its deepest satisfactions in work. And it is this more 
normal attitude which has received the stamp of 
American approval. The late President Harper of 
Chicago University said on his deathbed that he was 
looking forward to the world beyond not as a place of 
rest but a place where he would have more work to 

115 



116 EQUALITY 

do. Our best-loved poet crystallized this American 
spirit in the now so familiar lines, 

"Act, act in the living present. . . . 
Let us then be up and doing . . .'' 

President Koosevelt, using an adjective that has come 
to be peculiarly associated with him, declared that 
"our country calls us not for the life of ease, but for 
the life of strenuous endeavor.'' 

The title of a recent volume on America by a dis- 
tinguished Frenchman is significant: The People of 
Action. The Author, speaking of the apparent pas- 
sion for money-making, declares that "it is a question 
not of being rich, but of becoming so. ... To be rich, 
for an American, is not to be a social parasite, but a 
social force." We do not seek to become rich in 
order then to stop working; our rich men on the 
average work about as hard as the poor. Emerson, in 
his essay on Wealthy said that the American "is born 
to be rich ; not to amass money, which is despicable ; 
not to enjoy it, which is trivial ; but to master himself 
in mastering it." The power that expresses itself in 
conquering obstacles, and the new power that comes 
from success in the game, appeals to our manhood. 
We despise the idler, whether a tramp or the son of a 
millionaire. 

It is not that work is "noble" in some mysterious 
way, it is that working is interesting, working calls 
into play our powers, develops our character, gives 
us the solid satisfaction of feeling ourselves of use, 
and a vital part of the nation's life. And from the 
social viewpoint, a life of productive work is the only 
fair life to live. For there is so much work that 
must be done; and if one man shirks his part, others 
must do more than theirs. 



WORK FOR ALL 117 

Indeed, there is a vast deal of work that criea 
to be done but must go neglected for lack of hands 
and brains to do it. We need thousands of miles of 
roads built in this country — only twelve or fifteen 
per cent of our roads are surfaced. We need more 
railway tracks laid, more terminal facilities, more 
engines and cars built, more tunnels and bridges. We 
need canals, and deepened waterways, levees and 
reservoirs and irrigating channels. We need plants 
to utilize our waterpower, over ninety per cent of 
which is now wasted. We need the planting of mil- 
lions of trees to replace the lumber that has been 
cut. We need hundreds of thousands of houses built 
for those who are now packed too closely in tene- 
ments. We need more schools, we need more teachers, 
we need — ^but the list is too long to complete. 

There is a perennial tendency in this country 
toward the aping of the old-world aristocracies and 
the growth of an idle class. During the War this 
tendency was overborne by the pressure of an aroused 
public opinion ; and even upper class women who had 
hardly done a stroke of useful work before donned 
their khaki, rolled up their sleeves, and got into the 
game. With the coming of peace again, there has 
reappeared the type of rich man whom the French 
call the fidneur^ and our irrepressible American slang 
terms the ^^lounge-lizard." Still more in evidence is 
the well-to-do woman, who has servants to do her 
house-work, and spends her time in a round of social 
calls, biidge parties, or other trivialities, with per- 
haps a little ineffective ^^social work'' to salve her 
conscience, and piano-practice to keep her essential 
uselessness from being too apparent. 

This social approval, or tolerance, of a class of 
drones in our busy American life, must be vigorously 



118 EQUALITY 

fought. It is to be hoped that we shall not have to 
resort to a conscription of labor — although William 
James, and other distinguished Americans, have 
thought that, if properly managed, an excellent pro- 
posal. But we must keep in the foreground our 
fathers' ideal of a life of useful activity for all — which 
is the Biblical ideal also^ — : Six days shalt thou labor. 
We command you, that if any would not work, neither 
should he eat. 

The sin of uselessness becomes more obvious when 
it is contrasted with the overwork of so many others 
in our society. With all our labor-saving machinery, 
we have not lessened the labors of many of our citi- 
zens. Some industries still employ thousands of men 
for twelve hours a day and seven days a week. Many 
other industries require nine or ten hours. And this 
is not at agreeable and easy work, but at the hardest 
and most monotonous, and sometimes the most dan- 
gerous, of human occupations. In the steel industry, 
for example, according to the Keport of the Inter- 
church Commission of Inquiry, in 1919, approxi- 
mately half the employees were subject to a twelve- 
hour day, the percentage of employees subjct to this 
schedule having increased during the ten years pre- 
vious. In the blast-furnace departments of twenty- 
four establishments, 4,019 men out of 6,315 worked 
eighty-four hours a week. In many departments a 
seven-day working week was standard. 

The two wrongs, idleness and overwork, are sep- 
arable. But in general it may be said that idleness 
at one end of the social scale involves overwork at 
the other end ; if you shirk your share of the nation's 
work, some one else must do more than his share. 

Leisure is desirable, and necessary, for every one; 
not chronic leisure, but leisure coming after work. 



WORK FOR ALL 119 

This leisure is necessary if our citizens are to be any- 
thing but unthinking ^'hands''; if they are to read, 
and think, and be developed human beings, if they are 
to become intelligent enough to participate wisely 
in th6 sustaining of our democracy. For the mere 
matter of greatest efficiency in one's work, overlong 
hours are a mistake. Experiments have pretty con- 
clusively shown that in most occupations the average 
man can accomplish more in an eight-hour day and a 
six-day week, than when working more continuously ; 
employers who have given most careful study to the 
problem of industrial fatigue are practically unani- 
mous in favor of the shorter working-periods. From 
the broader human point of view, it is evident that a 
forty-eight hour week is the maximum that can de- 
cently be demanded of a man or woman in any routine 
occupation. There must be some energy left to put 
into reading books, enjoying pictures, listening to 
music, digging in a garden, or in some other way 
developing one's capacities as a human being. 

Professional people, employers, sometimes fail to 
realize this, because their own work often spreads 
out into ten or more hours a day. But their work is 
varied, and interesting; it develops their minds, it 
brings them in touch with other minds, whether 
through personal contacts or through reading. It is 
one thing to work ten hours a day, at one task or 
another, as a college student, a manager of a large 
concern, a lawyer, a doctor, or a minister. It is far 
more fatiguing to work ten hours as a mill-hand. 
Moreover, the work of the student or professional man 
or employer is largely under his own control ; he can 
stop if he is tired, he is not some one else's servant. 
The mill-hand, if the mill runs for ten hours a day, 
is forced to work for those ten hours every day, at the 



120 EQUALITY 

risk of losing his job. This is not exactly slavery, 
but it comes altogether too near it. 

Particularly disastrous is the overwork of women. 
For a man may be seriously overtired and beget 
healthy children; but an overtired mother means a 
sickly or abnormal child. Many children today are 
suffering from overworking of their mothers; and 
with the increasing movement of women into industry 
the danger becomes more and more alarming. This 
is no argument against the participation of women in 
industry. Work in moderation is healthy; and 
women, if they are not needed at home, for house- 
work or the care of children, ought to work outside 
the home. The time is past when a woman can be re- 
garded as essentially an ornament, a mere useless 
luxury for some man to possess; though that, of 
course, was never more than a badge of upper-class 
status, for the great majority of women since life be- 
gan have worked as hard as men, if not harder. But 
while it is no argument against utilizing the labor of 
women, it is a decisive argument against overworking 
women. Unjust as it is to force any human being to 
overwork, it is utterly disastrous when that overwork 
is bound to weaken the vitality of the coming genera- 
tion. 

It seems Utopian to expect all employers to be hu- 
mane enough to consider the welfare of unborn chil- 
dren, or of the State as a whole. It is therefore neces- 
sary to have stringent legislation on the statute-books 
forbidding the labor of women beyond the limit which 
physiologists and psychologists may agree upon as 
safe for any given occupation. Probably certain occu- 
pations should be forbidden to women altogether, 
though these will not be many. In particular, the 
law must forbid work, of many sorts, before and 



WORK FOR ALL 121 

after child-birth. And if this enforced abstention of 
women from wage-earning necessitates State support 
for mothers and infants, or something of the sort, then 
to that we must come. Such proposals must not be 
damned as ^^socialistic''; they must be considered on 
their own merits. The American principle of 
Equality demands a fair chance for every mother and 
child; whatever devices may be necessary to procure 
that must be accepted. 

Particularly inexcusable, in our prosperous land, is 
the stealing from children of their playtime and 
school-time, to save the hiring of more expensive 
adult workers. In spite of the efforts of reformers for 
a generation, child-labor on a great scale remains, a 
disgrace to our civilization. Something like two 
million children under sixteen are wage-earners in the 
United States. The Keating-Owen Federal Child- 
Labor Law, passed in 1916, was declared unconstitu- 
tional by the Supreme Court, by a five to four vote, 
and the safeguarding of the vitality of the American 
people by preventing the labor of young children in 
mills and factories, thereby relegated to the States as 
a matter of purely local concern. Unhappily, the 
laws of many of the States are extremely lax. A 
clause in a revenue bill passed by Congress after the 
Supreme Court's decision was announced, seeks to 
restrain child-labor by levying a tax upon the profits 
of establishments where too young children are 
employed, or older children are employed too long. 
This bill has been taken to the Supreme Court for 
consideration ; its decision has not, at time of writing, 
been announced. 

A number of States permit children under fourteen 
to work in factories and mills. Some States permit 
boys of twelve to work in mines. Many States permit 



122 EQUALITY 

young children to work on night-shifts. Few States 
set an eight-hour maximum for the child's working- 
day. Where humane restrictions are written into the 
Statutes, they are conmionly waived for the benefit of 
certain industries — as for the canning industry, be- 
cause of the perishable nature of fruits and vege- 
tables. Moreover, such laws as exist are seldom 
strictly enforced. A Government Commission investi- 
gating the matter in 1918 found that in New York 
City in one of the largest industries over ninety-six 
per cent of the factories employing women and chil- 
dren were violating some provision of the child-labor 
laws. In three months of a recent year, one hundred 
and fifteen prosecutions were instituted in Ohio for 
violations of the child-labor and woman's-labor laws. 
In three-fourths of these cases the fines imposed were 
remitted or suspended. In other States there is 
scarcely even an attempt at prosecution, public opin- 
ion being unfavorable to enforcement. This state 
of things is likely to continue until the people in 
general awake to the serious public menace of thia 
exploitation of the children. 

The National Child-Labor Committee is responsible 
for the statement that during the first half of 1920 
there was an increase of child-labor in fourteen States. 
Most of this can not be restricted by the existing 
laws. On the farms, and in the cotton fields, chil- 
dren are set to work by their parents; in some cases 
children five years old have been found doing a pretty 
long day's work. Instances are cited by investigators 
where parents have insisted upon their children's 
working, that they might add a little to the family 
income and purchase an automobile or some other 
luxury ! 

It seems to be not enough to plead for the child'a 



WORK FOR ALL 123 

right to play and to schooling, to point out that to 
spend his days in productive labor, while normal for 
an adult, is a misuse of the formative years, when 
a child should put all its energies into learning about 
the world and building up a sound foundation of 
health. Even to point to the demoralization of child- 
workers, the increase of juvenile delinquency, which 
is very striking among these working-children, arouses 
little attention. We must address our appeals to 
the pocket-book! 

Well, the argument on this basis is conclusive. Sta- 
tistics show that ^^for every dollar earned by a child 
under fourteen, tenfold will be taken from its earning 
capacity in later years.'' There is an immediate gain 
to the employer; but in the long run the State loses 
far more than it gains by the premature entrance of 
children into industry. The total earning capacity 
of a man during his working-life is far greater if he 
waits until his health is secured upon a firm basis 
by a carefully safeguarded childhood, and a reason- 
able degree of education is secured, before he enters 
the ranks of the wage-earners. 

Recent studies show clearly the increase of dis- 
eases among children who go to work; the normal 
exercise and growth of their bodies is interfered with ; 
they become prematurely old or unfit. In addition to 
this almost universal effect, children are far more apt 
to be careless in their handling of machinery; in a 
recent year twenty thousand children under sixteen 
were killed or injured in industry in Massachusetts 
alone. If carefully prepared figures were available 
for the country as a whole, they would be appalling. 
The eugenic loss is of serious import ; we are impair- 
ing the vitality of future generations by this sacrifice 
of our children to the greedy jaws of industry. This 



124 EQUALITY 

utilitarian consideration should move those who can 
coldly contemplate the sight of thousands of boys 
and girls, pale and listless, ignorant, uneducated, 

"weeping in the playtime of the others, 
In the country of the free." 

The pathos of the overwork of women and children 
is heightened by the realization that the involuntary 
unemployment of able-bodied men is a chronically 
recurrent aspect of our industrial order. Some in- 
dustries, such as coal-mining, never offer continuous 
employment ; the average coal-miner is unable to find 
work for more than two-thirds of the working days of 
the year. Nearly all our industries, under their pres- 
ent management, are subject to great fluctuations in 
the number of workers to whom they offer employ- 
ment. And it has become a common phenomenon for 
a mill or factory to shut down for a few weeks or 
months, at a moment's notice, in order to produce a 
scarcity of goods and raise the price of the product. 

The amount of involuntary unemployment in the 
United States varies in normal times from four or 
five per cent of the workers upward. In January, 
1915, forty per cent of the workers in New York City 
were reported out of work. In January, 1921, statis- 
tics showed that over two million workers were out of 
work, the country over. That such a situation works 
severe hardship needs no argument; few of these 
workers have been able to lay aside a reserve of sav- 
ings sufficient for a period of enforced idleness. The 
problem is a difficult one, and cannot be discussed 
within the limits of this volume. But we must insist 
here upon the essential right of every citizen to work, 
as a corollary of his duty to work. There must be 
no considerable idleness at either end of the scale — 



WORK FOE ALL 125 

among the rich, who can afford to idle, or among the 
poor, to whom idleness is the great horror. The prob- 
lem is not impossible of solution; many proposals, 
tried here and there, offer ways to ameliorate or cure 
this evil of our industrial system. We may hesitate 
to commit ourselves to this or that "radical'' proposal. 
But somehow America must ensure to every able- 
bodied person the opportunity to work — if possible, 
at a vocation congenial to his powers and tastes^ — but 
at least at a job that will maintain his self-respect 
and ensure him and his family against destitution. 
Work is a universal need, and must always be open 
to all. 

We may go further, and say that reasonably pleas- 
ant work is the due of every American citizen. 
Whether all necessary work can be made, by the 
progress of human invention, reasonably pleasant, 
and, if not, who is to do the hopelessly disagreeable 
work, are questions not easy to answer. Possibly we 
may some day accept William James's suggestion, and 
through a six month's or a year's conscription of our 
youth, require every citizen to do his share of the 
dirty and disagreeable work that must be done. But 
certainly most work can be made reasonably pleasant 
for the healthy adult. And there is no excuse for the 
dusty, sunless, poorly ventilated, unsanitary factories 
and mills that still so largely disgrace our civiliza- 
tion. It is useless to speak of the "dignity of labor" 
to men and women whose labor is spent in ugly and 
unhealthy surroundings. Nothing is more important 
than to maintain a good morale among workers ; their 
degree of zest in their work will affect not only the 
quantity and quality of goods produced, but their 
healtli, their attitude toward their fellowmen, and 
their happiness. "In some way we must get the 



126 EQUALITY 

spiritual appeal of the job." It cannot be got when 
work is too monotonous, too hard, too disagreeable, or 
carried on amid too disagreeable surroundings. 

In spite of the unpleasant and unhygienic working 
conditions that still so largely persist, this is a point 
in which America is taking the lead. There are al- 
ready a great many factories and business houses that 
are healthful and delightful places to work in; and 
their number is increasing yearly. Needless to say, 
in such concerns the employees are very loyal and 
the labor troubles small. A Swedish industrial ex- 
pert who recently visited this country has published 
a book whose title, translated, reads Joy of Work: 
Lessons from America. ''At sight of all this beauty," 
she writes, "which enhances existence and makes 
labor lighter to the many workers, one feels that man- 
kind has actually advanced." 

It should be needless to add that work in America 
must be made as free as possible from preventable 
injuries. We have been incredibly careless in this 
respect. In our mines and on our railways we kill 
and injure two or three times as many employees an- 
nually as in the advanced countries of Europe. In 
our factories and mills, likewise, preventable acci- 
dents are far more frequent. During the nineteen 
months of our participation in the War, some forty- 
eight thousand American soldiers were killed or died 
from wounds. During that same period thirty-five 
thousand men, women, and children were killed in 
American industries. This casualty-list goes on, year 
after year, but little mitigated as yet by the reforms 
and legislation of the past few years. Yet most of 
these casualties are needless, and occur only because 
the expense of safety devices postpones their install- 
ation. But human life is costly, too. And the pro- 



WORK FOR ALL 127 

duction of cheap goods, or coal, or transportation, at 
the expense of thousands of deaths and injuries an- 
nually is a shameful aspect of our American life. 

To sum up. Equality of opportunity implies a so- 
ciety in which every able-bodied person does his or her 
share of the work that is to be done ; in which every 
person is guarded from having to work too hard or 
too long, but given an opportunity to work continu- 
ously, a reasonable number of hours a week, during 
his working-life, at an occupation made as pleasant 
and as safe as American ingenuity can make it. Play- 
time and school-time for our children, care for our 
mothers and prospective mothers, employment for all, 
and such social pressure as will require that every 
one does his bit — that is surely the American ideal, 
the ideal that must be attained. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life. 

W. C. Gannett, Blessed Be Drudgery. 

R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, Part L 

Dorothy Richardson, The Long Day. 

J. Rae, Eight Hours for Work. 

Scott bearing, Social Adjustment, Chapter X. The Solution 

of the Child-Labor Prohlem. 
John Spargo, The Bitter Cry of the Children. 
E. N. Clopper, Child Labor in City Streets. 
T. Oliver, Diseases of Occupation. 
J. A. Hobson, Work and Wealth, Chapter XV. 
Florence Kelley, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation, 

Chapters I-IV. 
Josephine Goldmark, Fatigue and Efficiency. 
J. A. Hobson, The Problem of the Unemployed. 
W. H. Beveridge, Unemployment. 
Edmund Kelly, The Elimination of the Tramp. 
C. S. Loch, Methods of Social Advance, Chapter IX. 



CHAPTER XIII 

PROSPERITY FOR ALL 

America is the most prosperous nation in the world. 
The rich are richer than anywhere else, and there are 
more of them. The poorer classes are, perhaps on the 
whole, better off here than in any other land ; perhaps 
better off than at any other period in the world's his- 
tory. There are here at least no fixed social classes, 
no rigid barriers that make it impossible for the 
poorest youth to make his way to fortune. Nor is 
there, perhaps, any land where wealth carries with it 
less prestige. We have no first, second, and third 
class railway carriages and waiting-rooms. Except 
for certain snobbish smart sets, which are not rep- 
resentative of the true American spirit, a genuine 
sense of social equality has persisted since pioneer 
days. The rich man is the lucky fellow; but, in 
general, we feel that he is one of us and wish him 
well. It has never been an implication of our ideal of 
Equality that wealth or income should be equally dis- 
tributed. He may take who can get ; and so long as 
the race is open on equal terms to all, we shall take 
the other man's success in a sporting spirit. 

It is a grave question, however, whether this atti- 
tude can be maintained much longer if inequality 
of wealth and manner of life continues to be more and 
more marked. We have developed during the past 
few decades what is commonly called a plutocracy; 

128 



PROSPERITY FOR ALL 129 

tliat is, a comparatively small group of people who 
have vastly greater wealth than the great body of the 
people, and proportionate power over industry, and 
even over politics, journalism, and education. The 
wealth of onr prosper ons land is being divided far 
more unevenly than it used to be ; a much sharper line 
separates the rich from the poor. Discontent is rais- 
ing its head among what are sometimes called the 
''disinherited classes" ; not so much because of social- 
istic or Bolshevist propaganda — these doctrines are 
exotic on our shores, and make no very widespread 
appeal — but out of a natural desire for a fair share of 
the good things of life. We must, therefore, seriously 
consider whether some modification of the present 
inequality in the distribution of wealth is not de- 
manded by our ideal of Equality. 

There are various estimates as to the present dis- 
tribution of the wealth of the country. One statis- 
tician declares that one per cent of our people own 
eighty-five per cent of the national wealth. A far 
more conservative estimate is that of the United 
States Industrial Commission of 1915, which reported 
that two per cent of the population own sixty per 
cent of the national wealth; another thirty-three per 
cent own thirty-five per cent, and the remaining sixty- 
five per cent of the people own but five per cent of 
the total wealth of the country. One man gets an an- 
nual income said to be in the neighborhood of fifty 
million dollars — an income equal to that of fifty 
thousand poorly-paid laborers. Or, to put it another 
way, it would take one of the laborers fifty thousand 
years to earn what this man gets in a single year. 
The twenty-five or thirty biggest fortunes in the coun- 
try probably amount to five billion dollars; and, ac- 
cording to an estimate in the 'New York Times in 



130 EQUALITY 

1920, one hundred and sixty-two men have annual in- 
comes of a million dollars or more apiece. 

On the other hand, the incomes of our poorer fami- 
lies are sadly inadequate for the maintenance of a 
minimum American standard of living. As prices go 
in 1921, |1,500 a year, or thereabouts, is necessary to 
maintain the average family of five in even a moderate 
degree of comfort. Yet probably fifty per cent of the 
families in the country receive less than that. Ke- 
liable recent figures are hard to get. But in 1919, an 
investigation by Dr. Harris, of the New York City 
Health Department showed that twenty per cent of 
the thousands of poor families investigated in that 
city had an income of less than $600 a year! Thirty 
per cent had less than |900. In Massachusetts, in 
1917, more than half the men in the industries of the 
State received less than f20 a week — 11,000 a year. 
Of the women workers, about a third received less 
than $10 a week. In Baltimore in 1918, seventy-six 
per cent of the working women and girls were receiv- 
ing less than $10 a week. The Interchurch Report on 
the Steel Strike, in 1920, reported that the annual 
earnings of seventy-two per cent of the steel workers 
( who, with their families, aggregate three quarters of 
a million people) ^Svere, and had been for years, be- 
low the level set by Government experts for families 
of five." 

The most serious aspect of the matter is that in 
recent years the situation has been growing distinctly 
worse. Father Ryan, in 1906, estimated that between 
sixty and seventy per cent of American laborers were 
getting less than a living wage — which he then set at 
the very low figure, $600. The cost of living in 1921 
is probably, for the whole country, nearly a hundred 
per cent higher than then. And in spite of a good 



PKOSPEKITY FOE ALL 131 

many exceptions, the average earnings of the laboring 
classes haye not kept pace with this increase. If be- 
tween sixty and seventy per cent of '^working-class'' 
families were living in 1906 on less than a fair ^'living 
wage/' it is probable that more than seventy per cent 
were so situated in 1920. 

Many figures could be cited in support of this con- 
clusion, drawn from such reliable sources as the docu- 
ments compiled by the Treasury Department from in- 
come tax returns, and Poor and Moody's Manual. 
In his testimony before the United States Railroad 
Labor Board, since summarized in a pamphlet en- 
titled Relation between Wages and the Increased 
Cost of Living ( 1920 ) , Mr. W. Jett Lauck gave clear 
proof of his conclusion that, in general, 'Vage in- 
creases have lagged behind price increases ; and usual- 
ly they are far behind." Behind not only in amount, 
but in time ; that is, increases in prices were followed, 
not preceded, by increases in wages. The situation 
is well known to workers among the poor. For ex- 
ample, the Charity Organization Society of New York, 
in 1919, had a Committee on Home Economics, which 
reported that, "in spite of the common belief that 
wages generally had advanced, only two-fifths of the 
families interviewed reported an increase in the fam- 
ily income. In most cases the wage increases were 
slight in amount and far less than the proportionate 
increase in living costs." 

It is probable, however, that we are now to see a 
long period of falling prices. If wages are not too 
generally and drastically cut, the workers may pres- 
ently be better off than they were before prices and 
wages went up. Certain classes of workers, now 
relatively overpaid, should receive less than they now 
receive. The whole matter of remuneration for labor 



132 EQUALITY 

is in chaos. He takes who can get; while those who 
are not in a position to demand much, are fain to be 
content with little. Evening-up to some extent there 
should be. But we must not be content with a return 
to the status quo ante. We must be satisfied with 
nothing short of the abolition of undeserved poverty 
— the securing to every willing worker an adequate 
livelihood. 

We are very far from securing that now. To realize 
that this is so, one has only to go and see how "the 
other half lives." The housing conditions of a large 
section of the city and town population in the United 
States are a national disgrace that can hardly be 
exaggerated. Lack of air and sunshine, lack of sani- 
tary arrangements, above all, lack of room, are the 
conditions under which millions of children are grow- 
ing up in this country today. Out of thirty-eight 
compositions written by New York school-children 
from the East Side, describing their homes, seen by 
the writer some years ago, twenty-one spoke of the 
bad smell. If the others did not mention it, it was 
merely because of their habituation thereto. There 
are many thousands of occupied rooms in tenements 
throughout the cities of this country with no win- 
dows at all, and, of course, hundreds of thousands 
of rooms with windows opening only on to narrow air 
shafts where no adequate ventilation is possible. In 
one of the compositions above referred to, a little girl 
said of her room, "It is so dark it seems as if there was 
no sky." 

It may be doubted if there is any more significant 
aspect of a nation's life than the conditions under 
which its children are growing up. The overcrowded, 
noisy, dark, unsanitary homes which at present are 
the lot of a large percentage of them today are a men- 



PEOSPERITY FOE ALL 133 

ace to the nation's future, both from the point of 
view of health and of morals. Much can be done by 
enlightened housing legislation. But unless the in- 
comes of the poorer people are considerably increased, 
conditions are bound to remain very bad. What 
with the wretched home-conditions and the under- 
nourishment referred to in an earlier chapter, the 
physique and the morale of a large section of our peo- 
ple are in a fair way to be seriously impaired. 

It is not that the country is poor. On the contrary, 
the national wealth is increasing by leaps and bounds. 
But it is becoming more and more concentrated in the 
hands of the wealthy classes. During the past decade 
there has been a far greater percentage of increase 
in the larger incomes than in the smaller. One ob- 
vious reason for this lies in the fact that whereas 
practically the whole income of the poor is spent upon 
the necessities of life, which doubled in cost within 
a few years, the greater part of the income of the 
rich has been invested in securities, which have been 
purchasable at far lower prices than usual, and has 
been accumulating at a very high rate of interest. If 
the tendencies of the past decade continue unchecked, 
most of the surplus wealth of the country will be in 
the hands of a small class of rich people, within a 
generation. 

If this surplus wealth were to accrue to the ^^capi- 
talist" class only after the poorer classes had all re- 
ceived a living wage, and were to be used by them 
for reinvestment in industry, we might be content. 
Even then, the great power concentrated in so few 
hands would have dangerous potentialities; and it 
is a question whether the control of industry by a 
comparatively small set of people, implied by such a 
situation, is consonant with our American ideal of 



134 EQUALITY 

Democracy. But the actual situation is much more 
obviously wrong. For on the one hand we have hun- 
dreds of thousands of families with less than enough 
to live on in comfort, and on the other hand a class of 
rich people who spend extravagantly for the satisfac- 
tion of luxurious personal wants. 

The indulgence in luxury, and extravagant spend- 
ing, are comparatively new traits in American life. 
But they have been growing rapidly, so that recent 
estimates assert that a quarter of the national in- 
come goes today for luxuries. The rich set the pace, 
and a great many who are not rich catch the infection 
and spend more than they can afford. The result is 
that instead of being, as we once were, a thrifty folk, 
we have become the most spendthrift nation on earth. 

Most of this expenditure is innocent in itself, much 
of it is intrinsically desirable. Man does not live by 
bread alone; and the billions of dollars spent every 
year by Americans on automobiles, pretty clothes, 
jewelry, candy, soft drinks, tobacco, theatres and 
movies, and the other enjoyments classified as "luxu- 
ries," are by no means wholly wasted. But the pro- 
duction of these luxuries limits correspondingly the 
production of necessities ; and it is a question how far 
any one has moral right to indulgence while others 
are suffering. Every dollar spent on personal en- 
joyment of any sort means so much labor withdrawn 
from the production of other goods. Ought we, as 
patriotic Americans, to look tolerantly upon extrava- 
gant expenditures of any sort, while our poor are 
wretchedly housed and underfed? Should we not 
consider seriously the motto adopted by the British 
Labor Party at a recent election, "No cake for any 
till all Lave bread?" 

It is not enough to say, as we said at the beginning 



PROSPEHITY FOR ALL 135 

of this chapter, that the poor in our country today 
are, on the whole, better off than the poor have ever 
been before. It has always been a bad world for the 
poor, and it is still a pretty bad world for them. 
Their status, though it has improved in some respects, 
has not improved in proportion to the increasing pros- 
perity of the country. In the Old World the "common 
people" were not considered of importance, anyway; 
they swarmed and were swept away by famine and 
pestilence, with little pity from the ruling class. But 
the American ideal was that every human being has 
intrinsic worth, and a right to his share of the good 
things of life. So deeply rooted has this ideal become 
in our soil that we can never hope henceforth to have 
a stable social order until it again approaches some 
approximate realization. If class conflicts are ever 
to cease, if the "unrest" that we hear so much of today 
is ever to be cured, it can only be by the setting in of 
a vigorous tide in the direction of a greater equaliza- 
tion of the benefits of our national prosperity. Many 
observers would put the case even more decidedly; 
Professor Edward Ross, for example, in CJiangmg 
America^ warns us that "unless democracy mends the 
distribution of wealth, the mal-distribution of wealth 
will end democracy." 

It is not, perhaps, in terms of regard for an abstract 
ideal, or in terms of a concrete pity for the sufferings 
of their less fortunate fellow-countryman, that we 
can most surely arouse the attention of Americans to- 
day. It is in terms of national efflciency and pre- 
paredness. We are wasting our man-power, lessening 
our productive efficiency, by permitting poverty, in- 
adequate housing, underfeeding, anxiety over subsis- 
tence, the destruction of health, premature death. A 
division of the national wealth which allows a small 



136 EQUALITY 

percentage of our people, at one end of the scale, to 
pamper and soften themselves by luxurious living, 
and refuses comfort, health, leisure to a considerable 
percentage at the other end of the scale, is not a 
sensible division. What we should seek is efficiency 
in consumption, as well as in production ; that is, the 
greatest attainable welfare for the amount of wealth 
consumed. Luxury consumption is inefficient con- 
sumption ; the same amount of money would produce 
more valuable results if consumed in the form of more 
necessary things by more people. 

The problem of the ways in which money can most 
efficiently be spent to forward human happiness is 
a matter for very careful study. But it is clear that 
our present methods of consumption are far from the 
norm. Certainly more money should be spent upon 
food for the undernourished, comfortable homes to 
replace the squalid and unhealthful tenements into 
which the poor are crowded, care for the sick, edu- 
cation for the ignorant, and public works that benefit 
the whole community; less money, therefore, should 
be allowed for fine clothes, elaborate meals, and the 
costlier forms of amusement. Our present system of 
distribution, which permits a great expenditure for 
needless luxumes on the one hand, while on the other 
hand it denies the amenities of life to others, is an 
inefficient and inherently unstable system. And any 
nation that permits such a system to perpetuate it- 
self will, in the long run, fall behind a nation that 
evolves a more efficient distribution of wealth. 

Here and there one may discern signs among the 
upper classes of a realization of this truth. An Ameri- 
can financier of note recently declared that in his 
judgment the interest in acquiring wealth was be- 
ginning to give way, in this country, to the interest 



PROSPERITY FOR ALL 137 

in performing public service. Perhaps we shall wit- 
ness a revival of the spirit of the Greeks of the best 
period, by whom, Professor Butcher says, ^^money 
lavished on personal enjoyment was counted vulgar, 
oriental, inhuman.'' Perhaps we shall take Walt 
Whitman's utterance as our motto : 

"I speak the pass-word primeval — I give the sign of democracy ; 
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their 
counterpart of on the same terms.'' 

Several distinguished Americans have recently 
urged "self-limitation in regard to wealth." The well- 
to-do, one holds, should "take for their own use only 
what they require for the essentials of a civilized life, 
and regard the rest as a deposit for the general good." 
Another, writing in the Atlantic Monthly a "Word to 
the Rich," urges them to spend their fortunes during 
their life-time in good works. "The strong man has 
reached his goal, but it is not time for resting. The 
day has come for him to show other men that his 
life and his work are henceforth for them, and not for 
his own gratification. He must prove that he has la- 
bored for the common good, and that he knows the 
rightful, wise use of his profits. . . . This plan gives 
occupation and happiness to the giver, explains, and, 
if you please, atones to his fellows for his success. 
It blesses the receiver and the giver; it cultivates 
kindly relations and feelings between the lucky and 
the less lucky men; it takes a long step toward the 
making of a great, healthy nation ; and what higher, 
more pressing duty can the citizen have than this 
task?" 

Such instances as the following are becoming more 
and more frequent. The daily papers for November 
29, 1920, announced that a young Bostonian had re- 



138 EQUALITY 

nounced his right to a legacy of about a million dol- 
lars left him by his father. "I refuse to accept the 
money," the young man declared, "because it is^not 
mine A system which starves thousands, while hun- 
dreds are stuffed, condemns itself. A system which 
leaves a sick woman helpless and offers its services to 
a healthy man condemns itself.^^ It is such a system 
that offers me a million dollars." 

Other, equally conscientious, young men and 
young women, instead of refusing to handle wealth 
bequeathed to them, or accruing to them m the form 
of rent, interest, or profits from industry, are main- 
taining a simple manner of life and spending their 
surplus money for social or philanthropic purposes. 
Others are returning the greater part of their profits 
to the workers on some profit-sharing plan. Others 
are investing their surplus in the ^^P^^^^o^^ °' ||'.^'^^^ 
try, while keeping the ownership of the wealth in 
their name. It is a gravely puzzling question, which 
is the best way, tlie most socially desirable way of 
disposing of the surplus wealth of the nation. It is 
clear, holever, that its use for luxurious and extrava^ 
.vant living is not its best possible use Surplus 
wealth slmuld be used, for the most part, in ways 
that are socially efficient and ust. The ideal of 
Imei'c must be' not unlimited enjoyments for those 
who are fortunate or clever enough to command them, 
but a widely diffused welfare. 

Our existing industrial system could easily produce 
enough to provide plenty of food and clothing and the 
other necessities of life for everybody. If it does not, 
it is partly because too much of its energy is^ con- 
sumed in producing superfluities for the well-to-do 
partly because production is often purposely kept 
below its maximum by the owners of industi-y, in 



PROSPERITY FOR ALL 139 

order to keep prices high, and partly because the 
workers often fail to give their wholehearted energy 
to the work. The War showed that with most of the 
able-bodied young men drafted from industry more 
goods than ever could be produced. And although 
that feverish energy could not be permanently main- 
tained, there is no doubt that we can all live in com- 
fort if we utilize to the full the resources and 
inventions and human abilities now at our disposal. 

It is possible that some people are incorrigibly 
lazy ; but a proper system of vocational guidance and 
training would certainly discover for almost all men 
and women some work to which they would be willing 
to give a reasonable amount of energy. Some people, 
of course, are stupid; but appropriate education can 
make all of these useful producers except the ex- 
tremely sub-normal; and these the State must look 
after — if for no other reason, to prevent their having 
children. Some people will be improvident, and fail 
to provide for illness and old age; a proper system 
of health and old-age insurance will remove this 
gambler's risk and protect people against misfortune. 
Differences in productive ability will remain, but 
not such as to deny to anyone a decent livelihood. 
There is no need of anything more than sporadic 
poverty and want, overwork, undernourishment, or 
indecent housing. It is our fault, our national crime, 
that these evils exist on a large scale. 

The fact is, we have not yet realized our national 
unity. We are, in reality, one big family; the mis- 
fortune of one class is the misfortune of the nation. 
As Professor Leacock well says, "Every child of the 
nation has the right to be clothed and fed and trained 
irrespective of its parents' lot. . . . The ancient 
grudging selfishness that would not feed other peo- 



140 EQUALITY 

pies' children must be cast out. In the war time 
the wealthy bachelor and the spinster of advancing 
years took it for granted that other peoples' children 
should fight for them. The obligation must apply 
both ways. No society is properly organized until 
every child that is born into it shall have an oppor- 
tunity in life.'' 

The lot of the children is most important, for a 
man's whole life is commonly made or marred by his 
opportunities during a few years of childhood. But 
the lot of the adult wage-earner should also be a 
matter of national concern. And we should be con- 
tent with nothing short of a reasonable amount of 
comfort — at least food enough, enough warm cloth- 
ing, and a decent home, for every citizen of America. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

E. T. Devine, Misery and its Causes. 

Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House. 

Robert Hunter, Poverty. 

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives. 

W. I. King, The Wealth and Income of the People of the 

United States. 
Scott Nearing, Wages in the United States; Poverty and 

Riches. 
C. B. Spahr, The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United 

States. 
P. L. Haworth, America in Ferment, Chapter IX. 
W. Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, Chapters 

V, VII. 
H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics, Chapter TV, sees. 

43-45. 
E. J. Urwick, Luxury and Waste of Life. 
Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, pp. 236-242. 
Thorstein Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class. 
H. G. Wells, The Future in America, Chapter VI. 
T. W. Higginson, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 107, p. 301. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE SQUARE DEAL 

It is perhaps hopeless to expect any great proportion 
of the well-to-do to give the bulk of their surplus 
wealth to raise the level of life for the less prosperous. 
Neither patriotic nor religious appeals can counter- 
act^ for most people, the lure of the personal enjoy- 
ments, of one sort or other, made possible by money. 
"The money has been fairly won,'' they will say; 
"it is ours; let these others earn their own money; 
the race is open to all on equal terms." 

Nor is it to be expected that any socialistic or 
communistic plan of equalizing wealth will commend 
itself to our people. We are confirmed individualists 
in our attitude toward the problem of distribution. 

Is there then no hope for a more diffused pros- 
perity, for a completer access for all to the good 
things of life? Yes, the hope lies in our American 
ideal of the Square Deal. Individualism in the 
acquisition of wealth can be retained if the race is 
really kept open to all on equal terms, if every citizen 
is given a really fair chance to acquire a competence. 

The threat to our American system lies in the 
growing sense in the hearts of many people that they 
have not really had a fair chance. They had to go 
to work young, and could not afford an adequate 
education ; they have not been able to live under such 
conditions as would safeguard their health ; they have 
no capital with which to draw themselves up out of 

141 



142 EQUALITY 

the status of the day-laborer, and their wages as 
laborers are low. On the other hand, healthful living 
conditions, inherited means, acquaintance with the 
right people, pull, leisure for proper training of the 
faculties, together with a measure of acquisitive 
ability, give their possessors a tremendous start. 
The race is not to all on equal terms, it is to the rich, 
the clever, the fortunate, those "on the inside," or 
those to whom some combination of lucky circum- 
stances and mental qualities gives the necessary start. 

We may waive discussion of the relative impor- 
tance of these various factors. Men who have made 
fortunes usually attribute their success to their 
superior ability ; while if they lose out, they attribute 
their failure to bad luck or to the unscrupulousness 
or more advantageous situation of their rivals. All 
these factors, and many others, enter in, so that it is 
difficult in any given case to know in what degree 
success results from superior ability; and still more 
obviously impossible to generalize with respect to the 
class of earners as a whole. 

But even where it is clearly ability that wins the 
prize, it is apt to be an acquisitive ability rather than 
a productive ability. It is business strategy quite as 
much as productive efficiency that brings returns. 
The inventor who perfects some new process, the 
manager who evolves an efficient organization, the 
artisan who develops uncommon skill at his craft, are 
far less likely to grow rich than the owner of a plant 
who knows how to use the brains and industry of 
others for the creation of profits for himself. In fact, 
skill at making money seems to be in considerable 
degree a specialized skill, with little relation to public 
service or intrinsic desert. 

But far more embittering than the realization of 



THE SQUARE DEAL 143 

these personal differences in environment and endow- 
ment is the growing consciousness of what is coming 
to be called, in a more specific sense, Privilege. This 
term connotes the fact that a comparatively small sec- 
tion of the population have succeeded in getting for 
themselves the greater part of the natural resources 
of the country and the manufacture and distribution 
of certain monopolizable necessities of life; this 
ownership and control enables them to divert to them- 
selves an increasingly large share of the national in- 
come. Indeed, any combination of producers in a 
given line, whether formal or virtual, so as to create 
a practical monopoly, gives them just such a privi- 
leged position in our industrial system, making 
possible what we call today Profiteering. It is this 
situation, above all, which must be corrected or neu- 
tralized if we are to attain a stable and generally 
prosperous society. 

For example, some sixty thousand people own a 
quarter of the land of the United States; a compara- 
tively small number own a large proportion of the 
most valuable city land. As the population grows, 
this land becomes more and more valuable. The 
farm-lands of the country have increased in value 
over two hundred per cent in twenty years. New 
York City real estate is increasing in assessed valua- 
tion at a rate of about a hundred and fifty million 
dollars a year. The annual rent received from land 
in New York City is said to be about four hundred 
million dollars. The Astor fortune, of several hun- 
dred millions, had its foundation in this rise in value 
of the land upon which that city is built. One farm 
for which one of the earlier Astors paid |4,500 is said 
to be worth today |50,000,000. This is an extreme 
case. But the general truth is that there is a con- 



iM EQUALITY 

tinual increase in land-values, and that the fortunate 
owners of valuable land are in a position to demand 
an enormous amount of money each year from the 
rest of the population in the form of rent. 

Now we are not going to question the intrinsic 
justice of the private appropriation of rent. When 
a man has worked hard, saved his money, and put 
it into real estate, he is as much entitled to interest 
upon it in the form of rent as if he were getting 
interest on bonds, or on a savings-bank account. But 
apart from the fact that a man may inherit the land 
he owns, without having earned it himself — which is 
equally true, of course, of the other forms of Privi- 
lege — there is the other fact that the increase in the 
value of land is socially created. Land increases in 
value because the population increases. Specific 
lands increase more rapidly in value because good 
roads are built, and schools, and water-supplies and 
sewerage-systems, all at public expense; and because 
other people move into the neighborhood and build 
homes, and shops, and make the land in question 
thereby more desirable. Because of this socially 
created situation, many fortunate land-owners are 
able to get a rental considerably in excess of the 
average interest obtainable on the sum for which they 
purchased the land. They are in a strategic position. 
They are able to say : ''You cannot use this desirable 
land except by paying me this high rent." This is one 
aspect of what is today commonly called Privilege. 

What is true of land is true of all the natural re- 
sources of the country — the ore deposits, the coal, the 
oil, the natural gas, the forests. A comparatively 
small class of people have been fortunate or clever 
enough to get the ownership of practically all of the 



THE SQUARE DEAL 145 

sources of supply of these indispensable things. The 
great mass of poor people couldn't buy them up; a 
few rich people could. And now these people are in 
a situation to ask, and get, high prices for iron and 
copper and coal and oil and gas and lumber. In cer- 
tain cases, owners of some of these natural resources 
have received profits of a thousand per cent in a year 
on their investments. Coal we must have, or freeze 
to death ; lumber we must have for buildings and for 
furniture, as well as wood-pulp for paper. Copper 
and iron are essentials in an industrial age. And in 
almost equal degree a long list of important commod- 
ities. But because we must all of us have these 
things, is it right that we should have to pay for them 
whatever the owners of the sources of supply 
demand? 

Any one of a number of other factors may likewise 
give a privileged position, an inside track, in the race 
for fortune. It may be a franchise that gives its 
possessor exclusive right to supply a community with 
electricity, or gas, or street-car service, or to develop 
and sell water-power from a given site. It may be 
the possession of trade-secrets or patents. It may be 
the ownership of a railroad, or of refrigerator cars, 
or of storage-warehouses. It may be a tariff law 
which chokes off foreign competition and enables a 
manufacturer to demand a higher price than he could 
get in an open market. It may be a sudden increase 
of demand foi certain commodities, or a sudden de- 
crease in the available supply — as happened so strik- 
ingly during the Great War. But whatever the cause, 
or combination of causes, that makes possible the high 
profits, there are few human beings who will refuse 
the opportunity. In their own minds these fortunate 



146 EQUALITY 

ones are reaping the just reward of their foresight 
and cleverness. To the less fortunate they are just 
— profiteers. 

Some recent instances of profiteering will illustrate 
what is meant. The profits of the United States Steel 
Corporation were, approximately, $23,000,000 in 
1914; owing to the demand created by the War they 
rose to 1450,000,000 in 1917. The Baldwin Locomo- 
tive Company's profits rose from |350,000 in 1914 to 
16,000,000 in 1916 ; the Mles-Bement Bond Company 
from 135,000 in 1914 to |5,000,000 in 1916; the 
Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company from |25,000 
in 1914 to 13,000,000 in 1916. A considerable num- 
ber of fortunately situated corporations were able 
to pay dividends on their stock of over a hundred per 
cent yearly. Besides this, they greatly increased 
their reserve funds; the Steel Corporation, for ex- 
ample, in four years increased its undivided surplus 
from 1135,000,000 to |493,000,000. In November, 
1919, Mr. McAdoo testified before the investigating 
committee of the Senate to the existence of profits 
in the coal-mining industry running up to two thou- 
sand per cent on the capital stock. Indeed, the coal- 
mines were said to be yielding their owners in 1916 a 
billion dollars in excess profits every eight weeks. 

The point is that these profits resulted only in 
minor degree from increased production; in some 
cases production was actually less than before. They 
resulted primarily from increased demand. Where 
there is a virtual monopoly, as in the case of the 
Standard Oil Company, the Harvester Trust, the 
Tobacco Trust, or the Pullman Company, the price 
that can be asked is limited only by the possibility 
that consumers can do without the article. But ex- 
perience shows that monopoly is not a prerequisite 



THE SQUAKE DEAL 147 

of "charging all the traffic will bear." When a wave 
of high prices sets in, manufacturers and dealers who 
have what the public needs will raise prices gen- 
erally, as if by concerted action. To be sure, a reac- 
tion is apt to follow, a w^ave of low prices, during 
which many manufacturers and dealers barely sub- 
sist, and many fail — to the more or less avowed satis- 
faction of the consumers who have resented the high 
prices! But one evil does not atone for another. 
Neither profiteering nor bankruptcy is desirable. 
And the net result of these fluctuations is, in general, 
the increasing concentration of production and sell- 
ing in the hands of a class of capitalists, who, because 
of their monopoly, will be in an ever more favorable 
position for profiteering. 

According to a recent report, the amount of profits 
exacted from the consumers by the sugar manufac- 
turers and dealers in 1920 was in the neighborhood 
of $600,000,000— an average tax of |30 on every 
American family. In 1913 the margin between pro- 
duction cost and the retail price of a pound of sugar 
was less than one cent; in 1920 it was ten cents or 
more. Even in 1917, when the retail price of sugar 
was seven or eight cents a pound, the beet-sugar 
producers earned an average of about sixty per cent 
profit on their invested capital, while cane sugar 
producers earned an average of two hundred thirty- 
eight per cent on their invested capital. In addition 
to the profits of the producers, many middlemen and 
retailers have been shown to have made profits on 
sugar running up to a hundred per cent and more. 

Much the same story can be told with respect to 
shoes, and clothing, and scores of other articles. The 
American Woolen Company, for example, was shown, 
in an investigation by the Department of Justice, in 



148 EQUALITY 

1920, to be making profits running up to one hundred 
per cent and more. A case argued before the Courts 
in 1919 brought out the fact that a certain Brooklyn 
Cloak and Suit Manufacturer who could neither read 
nor write had within a few years amassed a fortune of 
half a million dollars. The five leading meat packers 
of the country, w^ho pull together and have a practical 
monopoly of the business, are said to have accumu- 
lated 1178,000,000 in net profits during the years 
1915-1917, Their rate of profit was said to be about 
four hundred per cent upon invested capital. 

One expert estimates that the corporations of the 
country received |4,800,000,000 more in net profits 
during the years 1916-1918 than during the three pre- 
ceding years — which were by no means lean years. 
These excess profits would amount to a tax of |240 
upon every family in the country. Another expert 
calculates that during four years the corporations of 
the country gathered in total net profits (that is, 
profits remaining after the payment of all their taxes) 
of 134,000,000,000. Not all of the corporations in the 
country made large profits, of course; on the con- 
trary, many corporations, not in a strategic position, 
earned very meagre profits, or no profits at all. This 
immense sum went to those corporations that were 
in a favorable position to exact it. Besides the cor- 
porations, many individuals and unincorporated 
firms made fat profits. So that it is clear that a very 
large part of the total income of the country within 
the past few years has gone, in the form of "excess 
profits" — that is, profits beyond what is considered 
the normal rate of interest upon investment — into the 
pockets of a comparatively few corporations and 
business men. 

Even the summation of frankly acknowledged prof- 



THE SQUARE DEAL 149 

its by no means completes the tale. For there are 
other channels by which the rewards of successful 
industry are distributed. A large sum is retained 
every year for the expansion of business, or for a 
reserve fund, or to pay off bonded indebtedness. This 
results ultimately in increased profits to the stock- 
holders. Again, the declaring of stock dividends 
permits a really very high percentage of profit to be 
disguised as a normal dividend upon the amount of 
stock outstanding. A great deal of the capital stock 
of the more prosperous concerns is nothing but 
"water" ; that is, it represents no money invested, it 
is simply a claim to an income from the industry. 

To some extent these great profits accruing to the 
fortunate industries and to the owners of natural 
resources are distributed among a class of stock- 
holders. But this is not a large class of people. And 
the bulk of the stock is owned by a comparatively 
small fraction of this class. The "insiders," also, 
have usually been the ones to buy the stock at a low 
pnce and so to make a large profit on their invest- 
ment, whereas the other stockholders are apt to get 
their shares only at an advanced price and therefore 
to receive a smaller return for their money. Another 
way in which the "insiders" can increase their share 
of the booty is by paying high salaries to themselves 
as officers of the companies. For example, the 
American Metal Company was reported recently to 
be paying |1, 000,000 a year in salaries to six officers. 
A firm of Wall Street brokers, according to the testi- 
mony of its president, was paying recently nearly a 
million dollars a year for the salaries of its twelve 
highest officers and directors; the president and first 
vice-president receiving |161,000 apiece, and four 
other officers close to or above |100,000 apiece. 



150 EQUALITY 

There are, of course, all sorts of methods of getting 
big profits in business^ — if one has a strategic position. 
Perhaps the most anti-social method is that of cur- 
tailing production in order to make the article 
scarcer, and hence saleable at a higher price. For 
example, in the winter of 1917, when the world was 
facing famine, a combination of middlemen who had 
bought up a large part of the potato crop allowed a 
considerable percentage of these potatoes to rot in 
the ground, because they could make more money if 
there were fewer potatoes on the market. So, when 
cargo space was desperately wanted and available 
tonnage was not nearly adequate, bananas were being 
dropped overboard outside of New York harbor, in 
order not to reduce the price of that fruit by glutting 
the market. For a long time during which many 
thousands of children and babies were suffering, and 
actually dying, for want of milk, in the city of New 
York, milk dealers refused to bring into the city some 
two million quarts of milk produced within market- 
able distance — and even posted notices suggesting to 
farmers that they cease producing this surplus milk 
which they did not wish to distribute. Naturally the 
price of milk remained very high, and babies of the 
poor died. 

These are not very unusual occurrences. In the 
South there is a recurrent crusade yearly against the 
"overproduction" of cotton. The Rubber Growers' 
Association, in 1920, suggested to plantation-owners 
that they reduce their tappings of rubber trees so as 
to effect a twenty-five per cent reduction in the output 
of rubber. This would have the effect of keeping the 
price of rubber high. The consumers would suffer, 
but the rubber producers would make a lot of money. 

Profiteering is, of course, not a new phenomenon. 



THE SQUARE DEAL 161 

But the War gave it an enormous boost. Business 
men have learned how to make the most of their 
opportunities. And while there are not a few 
Americans who refuse to make all the money they 
can, and find their happiness in producing or retail- 
ing needed goods at the lowest possible cost, the 
general trend has been heavily in the direction of 
reaping the greatest possible financial harvest. And 
this is the chief cause of that very great inequality 
in the distribution of wealth which we noted in the 
preceding chapter. 

It seems obvious that Privilege and Profiteering 
must be curbed if our American system is to be re- 
tained. For a while we can muddle along with a 
comparatively small class of people raking in large 
profits, at one end of the scale, and a larger class of 
people at the other end of the scale lacking the essen- 
tials of life. But not forever. It will mean even- 
tually reform or revolution. And by revolution much 
that is precious in our American tradition might be 
lost. So the conservative people, who make up the 
bulk of our population, must find some method of 
preventing the fortunate holders of the strategic posi- 
tions in our economic life from profiting inordi- 
nately from their situation, and, at the same time, a 
method of ensuring to the poorest laborers a decent 
livelihood. 

This is the aim of much of the "progressive'' legis- 
lation of the past generation. A beginning has been 
made. But — as the experience of the last few years 
shows — only a beginning. We have minimum wage 
laws now in many States; the minimum is usually 
set below the standard of comfortable or even efficient 
living, is quite too low to be satisfactory ; but it is a 
beginning. We have the machinery of taxation used 



152 EQUALITY 

to divert a part of the excess profits of fortunate in- 
dustries to the State. The Excess Profits Tax — 
which leaves an eight per cent profit untaxed, and 
takes only a small percentage of the profits above 
eight per cent — went but a little way toward recti- 
fying the situation ; but the idea behind it was sound. 
The graduated Income Tax and Inheritance Tax go 
much further toward paring down the fortunes of the 
rich, and enable the State to raise its revenue without 
exacting too much from the poorer classes. 

Of particular interest is the movement toward dif- 
ferentiating between ^^earned" income (wages, sala- 
ries up to a figure that can be honestly thought 
earned, professional receipts — i.e. what a man gets 
for his labor) and "unearned" income (interest on 
bonds, bank-deposits, and loans, dividends on stock, 
rent from land and property owned, excess profits 
from industry). It is no part of the American tra- 
dition to denounce unearned income. But it is an 
implication of our ideal of Equality that one class 
of society should not be allowed to divert to itself 
by this means such a large proportion of the national 
income that there is too little left for the greater 
numbers who are not property owners. To allow 
that is not a legitimate Individualism — which would 
seek to give every individual a fair chance — but indi- 
vidual or class selfishness. 

It is doubtful whether taxation alone can remedy 
the excessive distortion of our distribution of wealth. 
It is quite possible that we may have to resort to 
State regulation of prices and wages. Perhaps we 
must come to State ownership of natural resources — 
the coal-mines, the oil-wells, the forests, the water- 
power sites. It is no part of the plan of this volume 
to discuss the pros and cons of the highly intricate 



THE SQUAKE DEAL 153 

economic problems involved. The point of this chap- 
ter is simply that ways must be found and utilized to 
cure the generally recognized evils of Privilege and 
Profiteering. The continuance of our American tra- 
ditions depends, among other things, upon our success 
in this undertaking. 

Success in this undertaking would be the realiza- 
tion of what Roosevelt meant by the Square Deal. In 
his address to the Ohio Constitutional Convention, 
in 1912, he declared, "This country, as Lincoln said, 
belongs to the people. So do the natural resources 
which make it rich. ... It will help the people little 
to conserve our national wealth unless the benefits 
which it can yield are secured to the people." 

The fact is, in a nutshell, that prosperity — and all 
the human goods that material prosperity makes pos- 
sible — has been far too dependent upon the accident 
of birth. To give every child, so far as possible, an 
equal start in the race, we should see to it that, how- 
ever poor his parents may be, he has a chance for 
health and education and an adequate livelihood. We 
must recognize that every child belongs not only to 
his parents but to the nation ; he is a potential asset — 
or a potential weakling, incompetent, or even criminal. 
We must send him into life fairly equipped for the 
struggle. And on the other hand, we must see to it 
that the possession of the strategic positions by a 
group of owners of land and resources and important 
industries does not make it too difflcult for him to 
succeed, and win for his family a fair share of the 
good things of life. It is not that we begrudge luxury 
and power to the fortunate and clever, but that we 
must have a Square Deal for those who are less for- 
tunate or less clever in the acquisitive line. As 
Wilson has written, "America was set up that she 



154 EQUALITY 

might be different from all the nations of the world 
in this: that the strong could not push the weak to 
the wall." 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

J. A. Ryan, Distributive Justice. 

J. M. Mecklin, Introduction to Social Ethics^ Chapter XVII. 

H. George, Jr., The Menace of Privilege. 

F. C. Howe, Privilege and Democracy in America. 

H. D. Lloyd, Wealth against Commonwealth. 

W. J. Ashley, The Tariff ProUem. 

F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, Chapters 36, 37. 

H. W. Hamilton, Current Economic Problems, pp. 268-343. 

Stephen Leacock, The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice. 

W. L. Tucker, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, p. 480 

H. A. Overstreet, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 25, 

p. 165. 
A. K. Rogers, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 28, p. 

143, 406. 
J. H. Hollander, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 492. 



PART THREE 
DEMOCRACY 



CHAPTER XV 

POLITICAL DEMOCRACY 

The Declaration of Independence declared that gov- 
ernments ^'derive their just powers from the consent 
of the governed.'' Ldncoln defined Democracy as 
^'government of the people, by the people, for the 
people"; and defended it by the assertion, already 
quoted, that "no man is good enough to govern an- 
other man without that other's consent." 

More concretely, Democracy implies the choosing 
of legislators and executives by the people. In an 
autocracy the rulers are not chosen by the people ; or 
even if, on rare occasion, they are so chosen, they are 
not responsible to the people when once in office. 
Democracy does away with the doctrine of the divine 
right of monarchs to do as they please ; it makes the 
voice of the people the ultimate authority. Practi- 
cally, that means the voice of the majority of the 
people; for if action is to go forward, there can be 
no waiting for unanimous agreement. But no indi- 
vidual or class in a democracy has a privileged posi- 
tion. Every adult counts for one; and the prepon- 
derance of opinion or desire determines policy. 

Not only do all the people, in a democracy, have 
a share in the election of officials to govern, but every 
individual has the right to seek and hold office. There 
is no hereditary ruling class; anyone can attain the 
highest political position who can persuade his fellow- 

157 



168 DEMOCEACY 

countrymen of his fitness therefor. In this way, too, 
Democracy dares to trust the common man. 

American Democracy did not spring into being 
fullgrown. On the contrary, it has been in process 
of realization from the days of the early settlers, and 
is still but partially achieved. Mar-yland was the 
first State to proclam universal manhood suffrage. 
The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, 
ratified in 1920, finally included womanhood suffrage 
in the national policy. But so long as Privilege sits 
in high places, so long as "the Interests" have an 
undue control of legislation, so long as masses of 
people remain politically uneducated, the prey of 
clever bosses, demagogues, and a propagandist press, 
so long as millions of workers have no say whatever 
as to the conditions of their workaday life, democracy 
is still but partially achieved. 

Still, America has already achieved a large measure 
of its democratic ideal. And most of us will agree 
with Ambassador Choate's dictum that "the cardinal 
principle upon which American institutions rest, the 
absolute political equality of all citizens with uni- 
versal suffrage, is the secret of American success.'' 
It is important, then, to ask. What is the advantage 
of Democracy? Why should we be so eager to main- 
tain and extend this ideal? 

The apologists for autocracy can make out a per- 
suasive case for that system. Democracy, they say, 
is hopelessly inefflcient; it "lowers the aims of the 
best to the standard of the masses, while aristocracy 
must push the masses with their lower interests into 
a striving toward higher ends." 

We must admit that genuine aristocracy — that is, 
a government by the best people^ — ^would push the 
masses toward higher ends. But actually, an autoc- 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY 159 

racy is seldom an aristocracy. The chances are al- 
most overwhelming that hereditary and irresponsible 
rulers will be self-seeking, oblivious to the real needs 
of the people, blinded by class-prejudice, and very 
likely by imperialistic dreams. Even with respect to 
efficiency, apart from ideals, autocracies have seldom 
achieved striking success. Neither have democracies. 
But it is an open question whether there is not, on 
the whole, more likelihood of efflciency, in the long 
run, in a democracy than in an autocracy. 

The one undoubted advantage of an autocracy is 
that it permits of quicker decisions and quicker ac- 
tion. There is no need to wait for deliberation by 
popular assemblies or a popular vote. The few who 
control the national destinies can act instantly in 
any crisis. This is of particular value in declaring 
war, and carrying out a truculent foreign policy in 
general. But this alleged advantage is, after all, a 
dangerous and undesirable one. Autocracies lead 
their subjects into wars and embroilments. The 
slower processes of democracy make for a wiser 
caution in action and a greater friendliness in 
international relations. 

The rule of kings and a Junker-class has been en- 
dured so long in the world's history largely because 
they offered vigilant protection against foreign inva- 
sion. With the evolution of an international mechan- 
ism to prevent invasions and imperialisms, democracy 
can develop unafraid. And our own country, because 
of its great size and strength, and the protection of 
the oceans, has no need to subject itself to a military 
caste for ijrotection. 

Democracy makes war less likely, because it de- 
mands publicity. As Wilson has said, ^'Wars are not 
made because of the passions of the many, but because 



160 DEirOCRXCY 

of the intrigues of the few; and those intrigues are 
possible because they are pursued in the dark." 
Imperialism is not likely to go far when diplomatic 
methods are open and aboveboard. Democracies 
sometimes approve of wars, sometimes even of un- 
righteous wars; but history shows clearly that they 
tend to be more pacific than autocracies. 

It is not true that autocracy implies a greater cen- 
tralization of power or a greater subordination of the 
individual to the State. Democracy can have these 
things precisely in the degree that it desires. It may 
put experts in office if it wishes, and give them as 
much authority as it deems wise. An autocracy can 
never develop so long as these officials hold office for 
but a limited period, or are subject to recall if they 
do not satisfy the electorate. Our democracy is the 
result of a revolt against autocratic and irresponsible 
power. Hence we are still afraid of the centraliza- 
tion of authority, and distrustful of professional 
statesmen. But there is nothing to prevent us from 
training a body of men in the art of government and 
utilizing their services for the attainment of the 
collective will. Democracy can, and must, learn that 
efficiency need not mean tyranny. 

Even with our as yet clumsy mechanism of democ- 
racy we have been able in most matters to make wiser 
decisions than are likely in an autocracy. It is a 
mistake to assume that ruling classes will have a 
better judgment, or higher ideals, than common peo- 
ple. Lord Bryce, in his great book, The American 
Commonwealth, asserted that "where the humbler 
classes have differed in opinion from the higher, they 
have often been proved by the event to have been right 
and their so-called betters wrong.'' A distinguished 
American^ himself a highly cultured gentleman, has 



POLITICAL DEMOCEACY 161 

gone so far as to say that "there never has been a 
period in our history, since the American nation was 
independent, when it would not have been a calamity 
to have it controlled by its highly educated men 
alone.'' 

It is not, then, merely a matter of "rights," it is a 
matter of actual expediency to cleave to democracy. 
For democracy is the method that brings the most 
widespread and diverse intelligence to bear upon 
public problems. The prejudices of one class are 
neutralized by the opposite prejudices of another 
class. The self-seeking of one group is cancelled by 
the interest of other groups. Only by thus giving 
expression to the needs and ideas of every vocational 
group, every cultural interest, and every geographical 
section, can we get a resultant effective force best rep- 
resentative of the general welfare. 

And we must not forget the educative influence of 
democracy. In an autocracy decisions are made for 
the people; in a democracy decisions are made hy 
the people. To be governed never so well misses 
something of the value that comes from helping to 
govern. Mr. Elihu Root has declared that "the 
greatest, most useful educative process ever known 
in the world occurs every four years in the United 
States when, during a Presidential election, some 
fifteen million voters are engaged for months in 
reading and hearing about great and difficult ques- 
tions of government." With all allowance for the 
buncombe that they hear on the platform, the unfair, 
partisan arguments that they read, the meaningless 
eulogies and the mudslinging, there is a solid nucleus 
of serious attention to public problems, and a good 
deal of fruitful thinking engendered. One of the 
great advantages of the extension of the democratic 



162 DEKOCEACY 

principle to include women lies in the impetus thus 
given them to interest themselves in the problems of 
city, State and Nation. 

The belief in democracy implies the belief in the 
ballot as the means of effecting needed changes in 
legislation or administration ; belief in the ballot not 
only as contrasted with the bullet but as contrasted 
with what is today called "direct action.'' This is 
not to say that all strikes are unjustifiable. On the 
contrary, a strike to bring pressure to bear upon 
selfish and profiteering employers to grant a living 
wage, reasonable hours, or what not, may be the best 
means available to a highly desirable end. But the 
use of a General Strike, or sabotage, or ca'canny, or 
the expropriation of owners by workers (as recently 
in Italy), to effect fundamental changes in our insti- 
tutions, is sharply opposed to our democratic ideal, 
which demands the attainment of political ends 
through political channels. 

It is necessary to emphasize this point because 
there seems to be a growing group of those who de- 
spair of reform by the ballot and advocate the em- 
ployment in far greater degree than hitherto of eco- 
nomic pressure. The editor of a brilliant American 
weekly recently expressed his attitude as follows: 
"When the economic organization wants anything 
enough to insist on having it, nothing else really 
matters. In an editorial some weeks ago we have 
already adverted to the passage of the Adamson bill. 
The railwaymen wanted the eight-hour day, and 
wanted it enough to insist on having it. They got it 
promptly from the existing Administration, and 
would have gotten it just as promptly from any 
other. They now seem to want the Plumb plan, and 
have the support of the miners in this desire. We do 



POLITICAL DEMIOCKACY 163 

not think much of the Plumb plan except by way of 
its educative value; but if the railwaymen really 
want it, want it as they wanted the Adamson bill, 
they will get it and get it on demand. It is clear to 
this paper, in short, that actual power lies in the eco- 
nomic organization, and that whatever power the 
political organization has, is purely factitious and 
exists on sufferance. Hence the political organiza- 
tion comes finally to nothing but a set of dummies 
and may be regarded accordingly. No President, 
Congress or Supreme Court will ever be found in the 
way of any demand of the economic organization, 
provided such demand has the backing of serious 
purpose such as was behind the Adamson bill. 

^'The thing is, then, in our judgment — without stir- 
ring up revolutions, which usually mean the mere 
exchange of one form of tyranny for another and 
hence do little good and great harm; without array- 
ing oneself against the existing political or institu- 
tional order^ — the thing is to get the economic organ- 
ization to want the right things, the fundamental 
things, and to be in earnest about getting them. 

^'Let the existing political organization take its 
own course. It is keenly aware of the power of the 
economic organization ; and whenever it becomes con- 
vinced that the intelligence and will of the economic 
organization is really functioning behind that power, 
it will yield without any serious trial of strength." 

What of this argument? As a matter of fact, the 
experience of "direct action" in recent years does not 
corroborate this editor's assurance of its success. 
Both in England and in France a general strike of 
the railway workers was beaten. Volunteers were 
found to do the work of engineers and trainmen, 
automobiles were used to transport people and goods, 



164 DEMOCRACY 

and the people showed so great resourcefulness in 
getting along without the regular railway workers 
that nothing came of the demonstration. From the 
study of these and other cases a great many of the 
most ardent labor leaders and most radical advocates 
of social change admit that unless the public in gen- 
eral sympathizes heartily with the strikers and is 
willing to endure privation for the sake of furthering 
their cause, the attempt at direct action is bound to 
be futile. 

It is also obvious that there is, and will be, no uni- 
fied "economic organization." There are a number 
of different groups of workers, some wanting one 
thing, some another. If the railway-workers seek 
by direct action to force the nationalization of the 
railways, will the textile-workers, the metal-workers, 
the carpenters, plumbers, farmers, and teachers sup- 
port them? Not unless they have become convinced 
that such a change of policy is advantageous for the 
country as a whole. And if they are convinced of 
the desirability of the change, it can be attained by 
the ballot. They will never consent, and they ought 
not to consent, to the dictation of public policy by a 
single group or combination of groups which is not 
strong enough or persuasive enough in its arguments 
to win in a fair contest at the polls. 

Direct action is the attempt of a wilful minority to 
have its way. It means inconvenience to the public, 
very likely actual suffering. In engenders bitterness, 
and almost inevitably leads to bloodshed. If it repre- 
sents the wish of a majority in the community it is 
unnecessary, because its end could be attained by the 
ballot. If it represents the attempt of a minority 
who feel themselves in a strategic position to hold 



POLTTICAL DEKOCKACY 165 

up the community's life until they are granted what 
they wish, it is the very negation of our ideal of 
Democracy. Instead of seeking to decide matters of 
public policy by discussion, persuasion, and a ma- 
jority vote, it proposes to attain its end by a threat, 
by browbeating the rest of the people into accepting 
the policy of a minority. Under an autocracy, such 
a method matches power against power; it may be 
the best way of breaking the back of tyranny. In a 
democracy the one thing most needful is to preserve 
a general respect for the attainment of political ends 
by the ballot. And any economic organization that 
makes use of the public's need of its services to force 
its program upon the State is guilty of grave dis- 
service. 

On the other hand, we must recognize that groups 
of workers are right in pointing out that the owners 
of industry are making use of their strategic position 
to divert a large share of the profits of labor into their 
pockets. Owners of valuable land and natural re- 
sources are making the most of their strategic posi- 
tion to make fortunes by demanding high rentals and 
prices. Inheritors of fortunes are using their stra- 
tegic position to add to their fortunes at compound 
interest. Why should not groups of workers, who 
have no other advantage in the race, use their stra- 
tegic position to extort such terms as they can get? 

The answer is. Two evils do not make a good. By 
all means let us seek to curtail Privilege and Profi- 
teering and devise a fairer distribution of the fruits 
of industry and the natural resources of our conti- 
nent. But let us do it by political means; that is, 
by educating people to see the need of reform until a 
majority vote can be obtained for measures and men 



166 DEMOCEACY 

that will rectify existing evils. To seek a shorter cut 
to this end is to compromise the good sought, and 
to undermine the foundations of democracy. 

The fundamental need in a democracy, then, is 
political education. The responsibility for State 
policy in America rests, ultimately, upon all the 
people; it will be wise or foolish, fair or unfair, 
skilful or blundering, in the long run in proportion 
to the insight of the electorate on public problems. 
The big problems of public policy are not beyond 
the comprehension of the people. But they are ob- 
scured by prejudice and self-seeking, by the rhetoric 
and sophistry of a propagandist press, by the passions 
and greed of groups accustomed to think in terms of 
personal or class advantage. What we need is state- 
mindeduess, patriotism, Americanism — call it what 
you will — the habit of thinking in terms of the gen- 
eral good; and a widespread determination to study 
all problems from that angle. We need so diffused 
an education on civic matters that the mass of voters 
will no longer be helpless in the hands of political 
bosses, spellbinder orators, and a partisan press. We 
must think for ourselves, every one of us ; in the for- 
mation and utilization of an enlightened public 
opinion lies our salvation. 

On the other hand, we must not expect the impos- 
sible of human nature. The great mass of Americans 
are busy, hard-working, people, with little spare time 
and energy to study political situations and inform 
themselves with regard to candidates. We must be- 
ware of putting too heavy a burden upon them, for 
in so doing we shall defeat our end. We must devise 
such improvements in our political mechanism as will 
make the obfustication of issues less easy, and smooth 
the way for the formation and direct application to 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY 167 

public policy of a genuine public opinion. Ways and 
means to this end will be considered in succeeding 
chapters. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

James Russell Lowell, Address on Democracy. (Reprinted in 

Fulton, op. cit., p. 166.) 
Matthew Arnold, Democracy, in Mixed Essays. 
J. H. Tufts, Our Democracy, Chap. XXII. 
Maurice Maeterlinck, Universal Suffrage, in The Double 

Garden. 
W. H. Allen, Efficient Democracy, Chap. XL 
Stanton Coit, and others, in Ethical Democracy. 
J. A. Smith, The Spirit of American Government. 
W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, Chap. XX. 
J. M. Mecklin, Introduction to Social Ethics, Chap. I. 
Warner Fite, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 102, p. 611. 
J. D. Miller, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 25, p. 213. 
R. B. Perry, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 28, p. 449. 
W. Fite, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 18, p. 1. 
T. Davidson, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 10, p. 21, 
J. J. Mackenzie, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 16^ 

p. 129. 
Sylvester Baxter, in Forum, vol. 52, p. 313. 



CHAPTER XVI 

POLITICAL HONESTY 

A BRILLIANT American student of politics, in a book 
published a few years ago, writes : "We talk about the 
evils of democracy. We have not yet tried democ- 
racy. Party or ^interests' govern us with some fiction 
of the ^consent of the governed.' '' 

A conservative professor of law in one of our lead- 
ing universities declares, "In other forms of unpopu- 
lar government the central figure has been the mon- 
arch, the autocrat, the oligarch, or the aristocrat. In 
ours it is the politocrat (i.e., the boss). We have 
avoided monarchy, autocracy, oligarchy, and aristoc- 
racy, only to find ourselves tightly in the grasp of a 
politocracy." 

Another contemporary writer has recently de- 
clared, "The name of self-government is noisy every- 
where, the Thing is throttled." 

A valuable work on Social Ethics, published in 
1920, states this as a truism : "The average American 
prides himself upon his energy, his business astute- 
ness, his industrial efficiency; but in many ways his 
civic stupidity makes the world stand aghast." 

These are undoubtedly exaggerated statements. 
But they are examples of a very widespread disgust 
with politics in this country. This is not a new state 
of things ; on the contrary, inefficiency and graft have 
existed in our politics from the beginning. Charles 
Lee described the Continental Congress as "a stable 

168 



POLITICAL HONESTY 169 

of stupid cattle that stumbled at every step." It is 
doubtful if standards are lower today than formerly. 
But certainly they are not as high as our ideal of 
Democracy demands. We must seek to discover the 
causes of this unsatisfactoiy situation. 

It is obvious to any observer that there is a great 
deal of ignorance and incompetence in high places, 
even in such conspicuous positions as those of Con- 
gressmen. In 1917 a well-known political critic, 
writing in one of our conservative weeklies about a 
tax bill that had been under discussion in Congress, 
said, '^The House did its part in framing the bill with 
a looseness and carelessness which were almost terri- 
fying to anyone who understood the gravity of the 
country's circumstances.'' The chairman of the 
committee that framed it "was, in the field of finance, 
an awkward child — almost a wilful child, and . . . 
to say it in the only word that is adequate — igno- 
rant." 

A man who was for years a leader in the Senate 
recently made the statement that by the application 
of proper business methods the cost of conducting 
the United States Government could be reduced 
$300,000,000 a year. Other observers have made other 
estimates; but there is general agreement as to the 
existence of enormous waste. 

A professor of politics in one of our great univer- 
sities, writing in the Atlantic Monthly ^ declares that 
"consideration of Congressional procedure from the 
standpoint of comparative politics causes a feeling 
of blank amazement at the national tolerance." 

In another important American weekly the editor 
wrote, "This last session of Congress has been an 
ominous exhibition. From first to last it was calcu- 
lated to destroy all confidence in the machinery of 



170 DEMOCRACY 

representative government. ... It was garrulous, 
wasteful, amorphous, frivolous and foolish. It 
wasted money like a drunken sailor and time like a 
babbling idiot. It could not think, it would not 
imagine, it could not organize, it could not act." 

Still another observer wrote, "Among Americans 
who have watched Congress closely, who have deal- 
ings with it on any public matter, the legislature of 
this nation is cordially despised. There isn't a decent 
public servant in Washington who doesn't breathe a 
sigh of relief when Congress adjourns. There isn't 
an official interested in his work who can't work bet- 
ter when Congress is gone." 

Mr. Bryce described the situation clearly in his 
American Commonwealth^ though he was too courte- 
ous, in his role of foreign critic, to put the matter so 
boldly as this. "Congressmen," he wrote, "are not 
chosen from among the best citizens. . . . They do 
not pretend to lead the people, being, indeed, seldom 
specifically qualified to do so." 

Now, making all allowance for the exaggeration of 
these statements, the fact remains that, with excep- 
tions, our system does not get the ablest, the best 
trained men, the men with deepest insight into public 
problems, into Congress. The situation is even worse 
in the State legislatures and municipal councils. 
However we may hesitate to criticize our legislators 
and officials in the presence of foreigners, we all 
admit to ourselves that these are usually not very 
efficient bodies, to say the least. There is a vast deal 
of legislative blundering; important bills are held 
up year by year, or amended so as to ruin their value, 
and vicious bills are constantly passed. To point this 
out is the sheerest commonplace. It is when we come 
to ask why this is so that we are forced to realize 



POLITICAL HONESTY 171 

how little most of us understand the actual workings 
of our democratic system. 

Does the trouble lie in the fact that the ablest and 
most scrupulous men will not run for office? Or is it 
that the people are too ignorant to vote for the better 
candidates whose names appear on the ballots? Or 
is it that the nominating machinery does not get the 
best men upon the ballots? The answer seems to be 
a partial yes to all these questions. The best men 
do not usually run for office, because, among other 
reasons, they know that they have small chance of 
being nominated, or, if nominated, of being elected. 
The nomination of candidates for public office, 
whether it takes place at conventions or at direct 
primaries, is usually controlled by party organiza- 
tions, and these organizations will usually put up 
only candidates whom they trust to further the party 
interests. Even if independent candidates are nomi- 
nated, the chances are that — unless the candidate is 
unusually conspicuous — a preponderant number of 
voters will follow the party standards and defeat the 
independents. In short, our government is a govern- 
ment, ultimately, by party organizations. And these 
organizations^ — or the controlling element in them — 
are concerned in general, whether consciously or not, 
rather with their own maintenance and advantage 
than with the public welfare. 

Even if there were no parties, incompetent men 
would of course, be put up for office, and individual 
dishonesty would not be absent. But actually, what 
happens is that the party leaders look first, usually, 
for a candidate who will be "regular,'^ who will be 
pliant to the wishes of the Interests that support the 
party, and appoint as office-holders deserving party 
men. For this the ablest and most scrupulous men 



172 DEMOCRACY 

are far less likely to be available. For some con- 
spicuous office, indeed, a man of fearless and inde- 
pendent character and of special training may be 
nominated by the party leaders. Owing to the scat- 
tering of responsibility in our political system, such 
a man cannot do much to dislodge the party grip upon 
power; and the prestige of having such a man in 
office may be a needed asset. But in general it is a 
good party man who is put up and pushed; if he is 
able, so much the better; but his party allegiance is 
a sine qua non. 

Now parties are inevitable and useful organizations 
in a democracy, to formulate principles and carry on 
political propaganda. It is inevitable, also, that they 
should try to elect men who approve their principles 
and can be counted on to further them. It is, per- 
haps, also inevitable that they should degenerate 
largely into organizations for the securing of office, 
with principles a secondary consideration. But what 
must be clearly realized is that, as things are, it is 
the party-organizations that get most of our public 
officials into office. The incompetence of legislators 
and administrators is incompetence winked at by the 
party -leaders. The graft is party graft. When pub- 
lic moneys are wasted, it is not that the money is lost ; 
it goes into the pockets of the party bosses, or into 
the pockets of people whom they are depending upon 
for help. 

It is this situation that makes "reform'^ so difficult. 
An independent free-lance politician who tried to get 
his share of graft would find it a difficult matter. 
His best chance would lie in threatening to expose 
his colleagues if he were not let in on it. But he could 
be sure that the party organizations would do their 
utmost to oust him from politics and chastise his 



POLITICAL HONESTY 173 

sins. The vast preponderance of graft is collective 
graft. It wears the camouflage of party policy, and 
is connived at out of party loyalty by many men to 
whom it has perhaps never occurred that it is essen- 
tially selfish and dishonest. It is the accepted game 
in politics. 

As a matter of fact, politics are probably no more 
"corrupt" than business. People are in business 
mostly for their pocketbooks. A love of wielding 
power plays a large part in both business and poli- 
tics, but making money is the main thing. The dis- 
interested public servants in either are few. The 
average man accepts the situation, and takes his place 
in the game ; the man who does not want to play that 
sort of game keeps out. 

Thus when the voter scrutinizes the names of can- 
didates on his ballot, the chances are that: first, 
there are few if any candidates who have a more 
idealistic conception of politics, or who, if they yearn 
for it, do not realize that they must conform to the 
general practice in order to get on at all; secondly^ 
that if there are any such candidates, the voter, con- 
fused by the eulogies uttered on them all, or entirely 
ignorant of their qualifications, does not know which 
of them are these abler and more honorable ones; 
thirdly, that if he takes the pains to form an intelli- 
gent opinion on the matter and vote for the fearless 
independent, his candidate will be swamped by the 
great number of votes cast blindly, loyally, in favor 
of the candidates that the party organizations trust 
and back. 

If any reader doubts this party control of our poli- 
tics, let him seek appointment to office. The recog- 
nized route is through service to one of the leading 
party organizations and recognition by its local boss 



174 DEMOCKACY 

as a deserving party man. If you are a successful 
worker in furthering the party cause and are reason- 
ably presentable, you may, if you seek it, presently 
receive the party nomination for some minor office. 
You will be opposed by a rival who has been serving 
the other leading party organization. Unless some 
unusual situation arises, one of you will win. If 
then you back the party measures, and so far as your 
position allows, help get party men upon the public 
payrolls, you may be boosted to higher office. But if 
you oppose the will of the party leaders, you will 
receive no further nomination. 

There are, of course, exceptional cases. A man of 
remarkable personality, like Roosevelt, may win the 
ear of the public and succeed in spite of the party 
bosses. Even in his case, however, it took a war and 
an assassination to lift him to the presidency. He 
came back from the Spanish War a popular hero. 
He was nominated to the Vice-Presidency by the 
Republican party leaders in order to shelve him — 
the office being, in our system, one of singular impo- 
tence. If McKinley had not been shot, the political 
career of even so extraordinary a man and consum- 
mate a politician would probably have gone no far- 
ther. He was renominated because, once in the 
Presidential chair, he created a popular demand for 
his re-election that was irresistible. But when, in 
1912, the popular will again demanded his nomina- 
tion, the party leaders were able to thwart it. 
And the great revolt against the control by the 
"insiders'' of the Republican party, although led with 
Roosevelt's customary enthusiasm and skill, came in 
the end to nothing. 

In every age and country there have been those 
who have sought to control the government for 



POLITICAL HONESTY 175 

selfish ends. In the old days the method was crude; 
a ruling class perpetuated itself and denied the peo- 
ple any share in decisions. Nowadays a government 
has to be controlled in subtler ways. The main reli- 
ance of the groups of people who make it their busi- 
ness to profit by controlling government is upon 
party loyalty. In the name of a great party they 
nominate some one who can be trusted to work with 
them; they then eulogize his virtues and abilities in 
campaign speeches and personal conversation; the 
newspapers which are working with them join in 
praising him and disparaging his rival; his election 
is made to seem a matter of vital principle; and in 
the general ignorance of his actual qualifications, the 
party loyalty so assiduously cultivated can be usually 
trusted to float him into office. 

The rewards of this control of government are 
manifold. Offices are distributed to party-workers, 
including purely sinecure offices, for which no work 
to speak of is done. Appropriations are made for 
public improvements, for schools, postoffices, harbor 
dredging, or what not, and contracts awarded to 
friends of the party leaders. Water-power fran- 
chises, public utility franchises — all sorts of measures 
benefiting this set of people or that are passed. Bills 
which would curtail the powers and privileges of this 
or that business are throttled — not, however, until 
the Interests threatened realize the danger they were 
in. There are, of course, all sorts of ways in which 
those who benefit by the passing or knifing of these 
bills reward their friends who pull the wires. There 
may be a cash payment for services, there may be an 
election to a valuable directorate, there may be a 
purchase of property owned by the deserving poli- 
tician at a handsome price. In some way or other 



176 DEMOCEACY 

we may be sure that the unseen helmsmen are 
profited by their labors. 

Volumes could be filled with concrete instances of 
these methods. In a certain city is a house and lot 
advertised for sale for months at |10,000. The City 
decides to erect a school on that lot, and pays |17,500 
for it. We may be sure that the greater part of that 
added sum goes to the party leaders, perhaps to a 
single boss, who was able to dictate the necessary 
votes. Again, a new boulevard, or the widening of a 
street, is decided upon. Some agents have bought up 
the lands along the new avenue, which are going to 
be worth double their former value. We may be sure 
that the party leaders are making their profit there. 
Important ^Velfare" laws are blocked year after 
year : a law limiting the working-day of some workers 
to ten or eight hours, a law requiring seats for sales- 
girls, a law requiring costly fire protective devices. 
We may be sure that there are those who are sharing 
the profits thus saved to the employers. 

Some of these methods are quite obviously and 
cynically dishonest — as when the agent of a gas com- 
pany approaches the chairman of a legislative com- 
mittee that has framed, for this express purpose, a 
gas bill which would curtail the company's profits, 
and asks, "Well, how much do you want?" The gas 
bill is never reported out of committee ; it was decided 
to be inexpedient, on grounds, of course, of public 
policy. Very likely it was inexpedient. But it could 
have been passed, and it was worth a good deal to 
the gas company to keep it from passing. 

Millions of dollars are collected in our cities annu- 
ally from gambling houses, "disorderly" houses, and 
other institutions of commercialized vice, for "protec- 
tion." Even many innocent people have to pay, as a 



POLITICAL HONESTY 1Y7 

price of not being persecuted, subjected to annoy- 
ances, or refused privileges really their due. 

But these cruder forms of bribery and blackmail 
are a small part of the stoiy. More often the direc- 
tion given to legislation seems intrinsically desirable 
to the party men. It is really too bad to compel a 
department store owner to put in seats for his sales- 
girls; they would sit down and be lazy when they 
ought to be on the alert for customers. To be sure, 
the store owner advertises largely in certain news- 
papers, and these newspapers boost the party leaders 
in question. If the bill to require seats were to be 
passed, the store owner would withdraw his full-page 
advertisements from these newspapers, and the news- 
papers would discover that the party leaders in ques- 
tion were unworthy of support. Perhaps, indeed, 
one of the party bosses owns the newspaper. More 
likely the newspaper owner has some direct or indi- 
rect way of rewarding him. The quid pro quo game 
has infinite ramifications. Reformers speak of "log- 
rolling," and the "pork-barrel,'* or use goodness 
knows what other disparaging terms. But to the 
people in the game it is not dishonesty, it is just — 
the way the game is played. If you can get people 
with money or influence to do favors for you in return 
for your favors for them, you are no more dishonest 
than the average business man. Politics is business ; 
and business exists for personal profits. 

The result of it is, however, that "big business" 
pretty generally has its way, because it can afford 
to pay for it. As Governor Hughes of New York said 
in 1912, "There is a constant effort by special Inter- 
ests to shape or defeat legislation, to seek privileges 
and to obtain favors in the administrative depart- 
ments." And that effort is pretty generally success- 



m DEMOCRACY 

ful. There are always reasons discoverable for oppos- 
ing or pushing bills, apart from the really controlling 
motives. Many a politician, being "in with" the 
Interests in question, sincerely believes it to be his 
duty to protect them from inadvisable legislation. 
The fact that he receives a splendid "legal fee" for his 
advice — or a stock-exchange tip — or a nomination for 
a higher office — or a complimentary write-up — or 
social recognition for his v/ife — or what not — is sim- 
ply the due reward of his political soundness. He 
has the business prosperity of this great nation at 
heart. 

So, vitally important bills are defeated year after 
year. Special Interests fatten. Privilege is undis- 
turbed. Profiteering goes on uncurbed, local constitu- 
encies are favored at the general expense, vast sums 
of public money flow into the pockets opened to re- 
ceive it, incompetent "party men" sit in our legisla- 
tive halls, untrained men grapple with complex 
administrative problems, able men are defeated for 
office because they are not subservient to the party 
organization. 

It is not really quite so bad as all this ! Even party 
bosses may have some sort of conscience; and the 
average politician is not a bad fellow. Other motives 
than the selfish ones enter in to mitigate the sordid 
scramble. Moreover, bosses fall out with one an- 
other sometimes, to the profit of the public. But the 
fact remains that the welfare of the people is con- 
stantly thwarted, and a great deal is done that has no 
popular will behind it. Or if the popular approval 
exists, it is because it has been created by the Inter- 
ests, the politicians, and the newspapers who are 
working hand in hand for their common profit. This 
is the "Invisible Government," the "machines," the 



POLITICAL HONESTY 179 

"rings," whose dominance in our public affairs is 
matter of common knowledge. They work by under- 
hand methods, methods which, though usually not 
recognized as such by those who use them, are funda- 
mentally dishonest. 

Mr. Elihu Root, in his farewell address to the New 
York Constitutional Convention in 1915, said, "We 
found that . . . the majority of the legislators were 
occupying themselves chiefly in the promotion of 
private and local bills, of special interests . . . upon 
which apparently their re-elections to their positions 
depended." The situation there was thoroughly 
typical. Our rulers are elected by the people; but 
to a large extent they do not represent the people. 
They do not, primarily, owe their election to the 
people, but to the "machine" that brought about their 
nomination. And to the dictates of those party lead- 
ers, rather than to the popular will, they are, for the 
most part, loyal. They forward the Interests which 
their party is backing. They dare not — often they 
are convinced they ought not — to deviate from the 
party policy, on matters where the party demands 
their allegiance. 

Can we then hope to purge the party machines of 
self-seeking and graft? Or can we hope to launch a 
new party whose leaders will maintain a more ideal- 
istic and disinterested attitude? Or can we devise 
a plan whereby the sovereign people will be more 
independent of party control and able oftener to elect 
men of expert qualification for office and a genuine 
public-mindedness? One of these things must be 
done if we are to justify the faith of our fathers in 
democracy. There is no problem more pressing for 
this generation. Democracy is still on trial. As the 
writer quoted at the opening of this chapter con- 



180 DEIIOCRACY 

eludes, "With the inclusion of all men and women in 
the suffrage, with the rapidly increasing acceptance 
of direct government, the extensive work of the demo- 
cratic impulse has ended. Now the intensive work 
of democracy must begin.'' 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Theodore Roosevelt, American Ideals, Chapters III-YI; The 
New Nationalism, Chapters on The Crooh, and Corruption. 

H. G. Wells, The Future in America, Chap. VIII. 

R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life. 

Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities; The Struggle for 
Self -Government. 

W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, Chap. VIII, X. 

A. T. Hadley, Standards of Public Morality, Chapters IV, V. 

Edmond Kelly, Evolution and Effort, Chap. IX. 

Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Chap. XXIV. 

James Bryce, The Hindrances to Good Government. 

C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, Chap. XI. 

Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics. 

H. George, Jr., The Menace of Privilege, Book VI. 

Walter Lippmann, A Preface to Politics. 

A. M. Kales, Unpopular Government in the United States. 

C. C. P. Clark, The Machine Abolished. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 

Our problem is, to make government truly repre- 
sentative of the interests of the people as a whole, 
instead of, as it too largely is today, representative 
of the interests of the party bosses and the business 
organizations that can afford to give money and 
energy to influencing legislation. It is possible that 
by a more efficiently socialized education we might 
bring up a generation far more public-spirited than 
the present, and so raise the average level of con- 
science in politicians. Religious revivals, patriotic 
appeals — something may touch the hearts of bosses 
here and there and bring them to quit the game. But 
when a politician becomes too disinterested he will 
find the highly organized forces of the machine 
against him. And when one boss gets converted an- 
other will be ready to step into his shoes. The system 
has become self-perpetuating; and nothing is likely 
to uproot it short of such changes in our political 
system as will make it cease to be a profitable means 
of livelihood. 

Certainly the history of reform movements in this 
country is very discouraging. Nearly all of our big 
cities are ruled, practically, by a Democratic or a 
Republican machine, or a working-agreement of the 
two. A wave of popular disgust, the exposure of some 
particularly flagrant case of graft, the nomination by 
a temporary independent organization of some con- 

181 



182 DEMOCRACY 

spicTiously able and honest man, may lead to his 
election and a few years of relatively efficient and 
honest government. But the reform administration 
will inevitably be hampered from within and without 
by the ^^regulars" who do not want it to succeed. And 
at the next election, when the popular attention has 
lapsed, the machine will quietly come back into 
power. 

Reformers are never tired of telling us that it is 
our fault, that we have the kind of government we 
vote for, that we must take more interest in politics, 
learn the qualifications and past record of candidates, 
and vote more intelligently. 

" 'Why don't they keep the streets a little cleaner V 
You ask with keen annoyance, not undue. 
Why don't they keep the parks a little greener?' 
(Did you ever stop to think that 'they' means you?") 

But as a matter of fact, these appeals are nearly 
futile. The way by which you and I can hope to 
reform politics is too arduous and discouraging. We 
have other things to do. The bosses can give their 
whole time to politics, it is their business ; the chances 
are they will circumvent us. No political system will 
work well which necessitates for its success too much 
work or presupposes too much intelligence on the part 
of the electorate. We must adjust political duties to 
human nature, and not expect too much of people. 

One great and permanent gain has been made in 
recent years, the erection and extension of the Civil 
Service. This means that for thousands of subordi- 
nate offices a man may no longer be appointed simply 
because he is a friend or supporter of the leaders of 
the dominant party. He must show by passing a 
standard examination that he has the training and 



EEPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 183 

abilities requisite to the duties of the position. 
Fitness, not party allegiance, is the criterion of selec- 
tion. This deprives the party bosses in so far of their 
hold upon their supporters. It also raises the level 
of efficiency in the service, saves the country millions 
of dollars, and attracts able young men to govern- 
ment positions. They no longer need to fear dis- 
missal when another party comes into power. Their 
pride in their work is thereby increased, and their 
loyalty is given to the service itself rather than to 
their party. There is less personal dishonesty and 
slacking; as President Alderman of the University 
of Virginia says, ^'You can trust men if you will 
train them." 

The principle of the Civil Service should be ex- 
tended to many positions not yet included. Instead 
of the easy-going assumption that anybody can fill 
any office, we must aim to have all public duties per- 
formed by experts, trained for their particular work, 
and proving their fitness by examination. Congress- 
men, instead of wasting a large part of their time, as 
they now do, in making petty appointments and ap- 
portioning the party spoils, can then give their full 
attention to matters of public policy. Except for the 
highest positions, the party convictions of an official 
have no bearing upon the efficiency of his work, and 
should be disregarded. 

It would be impossible, however, to extend this 
principle to legislators and the highest executive 
offices, because in their case it is not merely efficiency 
and expert knowledge that is required, but convic- 
tions and principles which are to determine their 
policy. These principles must be such as to com- 
mend them to the people whom they are to represent. 
Moreover, in these responsible positions the factor 



184 DEMOCRACY 

of personality enters in, which cannot be adequately 
tested by an examination. It might, indeed, be an 
excellent thing if candidates for Congress, as well as 
for State and municipal office, were required to take 
standard psychological and information tests, and 
the results published, as part of the data bearing 
upon the voters' decision. But examinations alone 
can never show to the people who can best serve them 
in those positions that require important decisions. 
Those representatives must be chosen not only for 
their ability but because they can be depended upon 
to represent faithfully the needs and wishes of their 
constituents. 

If it were only a matter of expressing the ideas of 
the people, we might replace representative govern- 
ment to considerable extent by direct legislation, such 
as has bcome increasingly popular in several States 
of the Union. The movement toward direct legisla- 
tion — the Initiative and Referendum — is a natural 
consequence of the thwarting of the popular will by 
the party machine. But it cannot succeed to any 
great extent in breaking the power of the machine; 
and it implies the renunciation of the ideal of expert- 
ness in government. Legislation should embody not 
only what the people think will be for their interests, 
but what trained students of public policy decide, 
after mutual discussion and investigation, to be for 
their interests. 

Direct legislation does have the advantage of 
giving the voters a chance to express their will on a 
specific issue, disentangling it from the jumble of 
issues which complicate any election of representa- 
tives. And it may have an educative value not to be 
despised. But it is too much to expect the mass of 
voters to become competent to decide most questions 



EEPKESENTATIYE GOVERNMENT 185 

of public policy; they are too intricate, they require 
expert knowledge and study. Legislators are elected 
for the express purpose of deliberating and studying 
out the best solution of such problems. A popular 
verdict will usually be a snap judgment, based chiefly 
upon superficial newspaper arguments, the speeches 
of clever orators, or sectional interests and preju- 
dices. The party organizations have the advantage 
in creating these prejudices and misunderstandings; 
the newspapers are controlled by definite Interests. 
Thus direct legislation can be used by party machines 
to thwart a too public-spirited legislature as well as 
by an aroused public to thwart a party-dominated 
legislature. 

The people should be able to elect to the highest 
offices the men they trust and honor^ — as they very 
often can not today. They should decide, by the choice 
of their representatives, the big questions of public 
policy. If their representatives are thus men whom 
they trust and honor, men who represent their general 
attitudes toward public policy, they should, in gen- 
eral, leave to their more deliberately formed opinion 
the decisions as to ways and means. This certainly 
is the ideal of traditional Americanism. Direct inter- 
position by the people should, perhaps, be available 
for exceptional cases. But it should be employed 
with caution. If we can but make our representatives 
truly representative it will seldom be necessary to 
resort to these heroic measures. 

The Recall, likewise, is a double-edged and danger- 
ous weapon. When there appears a wave of popular 
indignation at some office-holder, because of the dis- 
closure of his dishonesty or treason to the interests 
of the people, the Recall may be used to salutary 
effect. But we are so used to bad government that 



186 DEMOCRACY 

such waves of effective indignation are rare. And the 
Eecall, if it is available at all, can be instituted by the 
party machine as well as by reformers. The machine 
organization can reach the ears of many voters; 
selfish advantage and blind party loyalty can always 
command for it many votes. And a campaign of 
slander and vilification can, at least temporarily, 
arouse masses of suggestible voters against the hap- 
less victim of party ostracism. The Recall need not 
be often used, but it can be held as a threat over the 
heads of party members to keep them in line. Hence 
it is desirable that — at least as long as office-seeking 
party organizations dominate our politics^ — the Recall 
should, if available at all, be so restricted and hedged 
about with conditions that it cannot be used to 
intimidate independent and honest officials. If we 
devise a surer plan of getting the best men into office, 
it will seldom be needed. 

The crux of the problem of democracy is, how to 
get the right men into office. The voters cannot judge 
fairly of the qualifications of candidates for office, in 
any case, unless they are conspicuous leaders with 
easily ascertainable records, or unless they are elected 
from so small a constituency that most of the voters 
know them personally. Moreover, the number of 
offices to which election must be made is usually so 
great that the voter has neither time nor energy to 
ferret out their past record, study their character, and 
make a reasonable decision as to which of the can- 
didates offered is the best for each office. The result 
is, as we all know, that we go to the voting-booth 
with a clear idea of why we should vote for this man 
or that for a few leading offices, and for the rest we 
accept the nominees of the party-organization with 
which we have, for one reason or other, affiliated our- 



EEPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 187 

selves. We may knife the party nominee for 
Governor or Mayor, but we tamely follow the party 
lead in nine cases out of ten. What else is there for 
us to do? Hence the party -bosses go on putting up 
second- and third-rate men for these offices, men whom 
they can count on as tools for their ends. And we are 
helpless. 

As a matter of fact, for State and municipal offices 
it usually matters very little, if at all, that a candidate 
belongs to the Republican or Democratic or some 
other party, because the issues that divide these 
parties refer to matters of national policy, and have 
nothing to do with efficiency in State and local 
government. It is quite feasible, then, to remove the 
party emblems and designations from the ballot or 
voting-machine, and to vote for these candidates 
simply as individuals of such and such a record and 
character, making such and such promises. Inde- 
pendent candidates would thereby be encouraged to 
put their names up for election (there are ways of 
discouraging candidates who would have no chance 
of election), and it would become common, perhaps, 
to have a really excellent candidate for every office 
rather than a mere choice between third-rate men, 
as now so often happens. 

But the insuperable obstacle of our ignorance 
would still intervene. How should we know which 
of the candidates for all these offices were really 
worthy? In our distraction we should, in most cases, 
either not vote at all, or vote more or less hit or miss, 
or fall back upon a slate recommended by our party. 

One method of correcting our ignorance and blind 
party loyalty is the publication of a pamphlet by some 
non-partisan organization run by men of standing in 
the community, summarizing the qualifications of the 



188 DEMOCEACY 

candidates. But if the number of candidates is large, 
it is doubtful if a sufficient number of voters can be 
got to study up and remember their qualifications, 
even when thus compactly presented. Moreover, 
such a statement, to be truly non-partisan, must con- 
fine itself to facts, and cannot fill in the picture with 
the appraisal which is necessary to truly guide the 
voter. The statement of the past record of a candi- 
date will mean little to a voter who has not been 
conscientiously following the course of government 
in his State and city. And a man's legislative expert- 
ness can often not be expressed in terms of the fact 
that he introduced this bill, voted for that, against 
this other, and so on. Administrative efflciency is 
even harder to describe in impartial terms; and so 
closely are the duties of various offices interwoven 
that it is impossible to present except in terms of 
personal judgment the expertness and energy of the 
various officials. 

There is only one way out of this situation. We 
must not be asked to vote for so many people. Our 
forefathers were so afraid of autocracy that they 
planned to have almost all offices filled by popular 
election. This was feasible under the conditions of 
a small and simple society. But with our great 
increase in population this plan of having many 
elective offices defeats its own end. What we should 
aim for now is to have only the most important 
officials chosen by popular vote, leaving to them the 
appointment of their subordinates. In this way the 
ballot to be presented to the voter will contain the 
names of the candidates for but one or two, at most 
not more than four or five offices. The voter will 
concentrate his attention on the candidates for these 
conspicuous offices, the newspapers will discuss them. 



EEPEESENTATIYE GOVEENMENT 189 

and their qualifications for office will be readily 
ascertainable. With this spotlight turned on the 
small group of candidates, the party organizations 
will discover the necessity of nominating men whose 
qualifications will bear inspection. And if indepen- 
dent candidates are put up, there is considerable 
likelihood, if they are clearly superior to the machine 
candidates, that they will be elected. 

That this shortening of the ballot is the imperious 
necessity in our political system today is the judg- 
ment of most imjiartial students. Ex-President 
Eliot of Harvard has spoken of it as "absolutely the 
gist of all constructive reform." Mr. Albert Kales, 
professor of law in Northwestern University, con- 
cludes a valuable book on politics with the emphatic 
declaration that the three words "The Short Ballot" 
are "the emancipation proclamation for our govern- 
ment," expressing the need which is, of all our present 
political needs, the most pressing. 

This plan has several great advantages besides that 
of evoking a much wiser vote than is now obtained. 
For one thing, it concentrates responsibility. Our 
present plan of electing many officials divides govern- 
mental powers in such a way that the responsibility 
for bad government can be easily evaded. All sorts 
of State and municipal officers divide up administra- 
tive functions ; because they are elected by the people, 
the Governor or Mayor cannot be blamed for their 
inefficiency. Often jurisdictions and duties overlap; 
often there is friction between different arms of the 
Government. Deadlocks often arise, the difficulty of 
passing and executing legislation becomes great, and 
the public finds it impossible to ascertain who really 
is to blame. This situation creates, of course, a happy 
hunting-ground for the machine politician. 



190 DEKOCEACY 

It is a mistake to think that as little power as 
possible should be given to any one official. On the 
contrary, where, for example, a small body of com- 
missioners is elected to manage all the affairs of a 
city, these few men can be held directly responsible 
for everything that is done. If one commissioner is 
chosen from each of several sections of the city, the 
voter will have but one official to elect. He will 
concentrate his attention upon this one choice; and 
if the candidate he elects does not fulfil his wishes, 
it will be because of the conflicting policy of the few 
other men on the Council. Their votes can be fol- 
lowed in detail, and a close watch kept upon their 
administration. All the other municipal officials not 
appointed through the Civil Service will be their 
appointees, and the responsibility for their conduct 
will be theirs. As there will be frequent re-elections 
to this municipal Council, there will be comparatively 
little danger of autocratic or fundamentally dishonest 
government. Detection and location of responsibility 
are too certain, and the mechanism of changing the 
Government too easy. 

In the national election the voter will have to 
decide, at most, upon his choice for President, Vice- 
President, Senator, and Representative. No other 
officials should be elected at the same time, so that 
his attention may be concentrated upon the candi- 
dates for these high offices. The President appoints 
his Cabinet officers, and is responsible for their con- 
duct and for that of their appointees. Similarly, 
when the State election takes place, the voter should 
be called upon to vote only for Governor, Lieutenant 
Governor, and Representative — with the addition of 
State Senator if the State legislature is bi-cameral. 
The other State officers should be appointed by the 



REPKESENTATIYE GOVERNMENT 191 

Governor. It may be that we shall ultimately merge 
the executive and legislative branches in our State 
governments, as we have done so successfully in many 
of our municipal governments, electing a Commission 
to have complete control of all State business. But 
whatever the exact form of government, the most 
important point to bear in mind is^ — the election of 
few officials and the concentration of responsibility 
upon their shoulders. 

Government by a small Council or Commission is 
the ideal form of government. One-man government 
is bound to be too highly colored by a single point of 
view; the mutual deliberation of several minds, the 
reaction upon one another's ideas, the correction of 
one another's idiosyncrasies, leads to a greater 
wisdom. But our government has more often 
suffered from too wide a diffusion of power. As 
Lord Bryce wrote, in The American Commonwealth, 
"There is in the American government, considered as 
a whole, a want of unity. The branches are uncon- 
nected and their efforts are not directed to one aim, 
do not produce one harmonious result." The plan 
of concentrated responsibility here urged will correct 
this generally recognized fault in our political 
mechanism. Our Government will still be as demo- 
cratic ; the appointees of our few elected officials are 
actually more likely to represent the interests of the 
people than those who, under our present complicated 
and confusing plan, are nominated by party leaders 
and blindly elected by the voters. 

The City Manager plan has proved to be the best 
political mechanism yet devised in this country. A 
small City Council is elected by popular vote. This 
Council appoints an expert administrator — the City 
Manager, he is usually called — to take complete 



192 DEMOCRACY 

charge of the municipal businessi. The members of 
the Council are men whom the voters trust, but not 
necessarily experts in the profession of running a 
city government Nor could the voters be trusted to 
judge of the qualifications of candidates for this 
skilled vocation. But by this indirect method, city 
administration can be made an expert profession. 
A young man may enter it as he would enter the law, 
or medicine; he may offer his services first to some 
small town, and work his way up to the administra- 
tion of a great city. This will not be possible until 
we take city government "out of politics," that is, out 
of party control. But a non-partisan, small city 
Council, entrusted with the entire responsibility for 
the City's welfare, and closely watched by the elec- 
torate^ will have every possible incentive for seeing 
to it that the City's business is efficiently done. 

Such a City Manager finds it to his advantage to 
satisfy the citizens as a whole — not a particular 
party or section. His continuance in office, and his 
whole future career, depend upon the reputation he 
makes. If he makes good, a change in the personnel 
of the Council will not necessarily remove him from 
office; there is more likelihood of stability of govern- 
ment under this than under any other form of demo- 
cratic government. 

Similar plans of delegated government are appli- 
cable to State and National affairs. Appointed offi- 
cials and commissions should do a great deal of the 
expert work that is now handled by elected officials. 
The elected officials are responsible to the people, and 
will therefore keep a sharp eye upon their appointees. 
But they need not make politics their vocation, and 
may retain their regular professions. In this way 



EEPRESENTATIYE GOVERNMENT 193 

the ablest and best known citizens can accept these 
high offices, decide upon the best available trained 
experts to call in to carry on the various functions 
of government, without themselves having to devote 
their time to becoming expert in those manifold 
duties. We can thus have specialization of function, 
and expert seiTice, combined with quick responsive- 
ness, through the elective Council or Executive, to 
the popular will. 

Coupled with this mechanism of indirect govern- 
ment and concentrated responsibility, we should 
elaborate a plan for a greater participation of the 
people in public discussion. These open forums 
should not be party affairs, or confined to occupa- 
tional groups, because we should then have a parti 
priSy a one-sided point of view. We do not want more 
meetings to defend a party dogma, to whip people 
into line with a platform. We want meetings of 
people with varying views, for the purpose of mutual 
understanding, the clarification of ideas, and their 
integration, through reciprocal suggestion, into some- 
thing more nearly representing a Common Will. 
Neighborhood units, not so large as to be unwieldy, 
but large enough to bring together men and women 
of diverse convictions and experiences, and to evoke 
leadership, make the best political groups. Such 
groups, meeting periodically for discussion of public 
questions, would produce a public opinion in far 
greater degree than now independent of the manipu- 
lated party-opinion and the manipulated newspaper- 
opinion now so overwhelmingly dominant. 

Perhaps eventually we shall use such Neighbor- 
hood Groups as electoral units, and send a represen- 
tative from each one — some one who is personally 



194 DEKOCRACT 

known and approved by the group, and has shown the 
qualities of leadership therein — to our elective Coun- 
cil. At any rate, we must not be afraid of trying 
new methods. Our politics have got into a rut. The 
system perhaps once adequate needs revision in the 
light of contemporary experience. The revision must 
always be for the pui^DOse of realizing our traditional 
ideals. But it is those ideals, not the particular 
ways and means that our fathers devised, that are 
sacred. Washington himself criticized the Constitu- 
tion sharply, finding in it "a host of vices and inex- 
pediencies.'^ We must be as critical in our attitude — 
not destructively but constructively critical. 

Once and for all, we must give up our complacent 
reliance upon exhortation to the electorate and abuse 
of the politicians. Human nature will continue to 
be human nature ; we must utilize it as it is. Instead 
of abortive or purely transient attempts to "purify" 
politics, we must put into operation methods that are 
practicable and that do not so readily lend them- 
selves to anti-social practices. The devotion of the 
youth of the land is needed to evolve a system of 
representative government of which we may properly 
be proud. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

James Bryce, The American Commonwealth. 
W. H. Taft, Four Aspects of Civic Duty. 
Elihu Root, The Citizens Part in Government. 

D. F. Wilcox, Government hy all the People. 

C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, Chap. XI. 
H. G. Wells, Social Forces in England and America, p. 293, ff. 
M. P. FoUett, The New State. 
R. S. Childs, Short Ballot Principles. 

E. S. Bradford, Commission Government in American Cities. 
W. B. Munroe, The Government of American Cities. 

C. E. Rightor, City Manager in Dayton. 



EEPRESENTATIVE GOYEENMENT 195 

Charles Zueblin, American Municipal Progress, revised ed., 

Chap. XX. 
Evans Woolen, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 41. 
J. Bourne, Jr., in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, pp. 122, 429. 
J. N. Earned, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, p. 610. 
H. A. Overstreet, Forum, vol. 54, p. 6. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

DEMOCRACY IN JOURNALISM 

We have been considering how, in our democracy, 
public opinion can get itself faithfully represented 
and its dictates expertly carried out. But behind 
that problem lies the problem of how a well-informed 
and wise public opinion can be created. Open-forum 
meetings for free discussion of contemporary affairs 
might be of great value. But these meetings would 
be held only at intervals, whereas the newspapers are 
read daily. Whether or not their readers realize that 
their views are being formed by the papers they read, 
it is to a very great degree the fact. Americans read 
their newspapers more than the people of any other 
nation. Hence it is of the utmost importance that 
the news furnished in the daily press be accurate and 
impartial, reporting every event of importance and 
reporting it uncolored by the bias of the newspaper- 
owners. If one set of facts is ignored and another 
set of facts emphasized or exaggerated, public opinion 
is in so far misled, and its resulting judgments 
warped. 

The importance of a free and impartial press was 
recognized by our fathers. The Virginia Declaration 
of Rights, of June 2, 1776, declared that "freedom of 
the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty." 
No more fearlessly honest journal than Benjamin 
Franklin's Gazette was ever published. In general, 

196 



DEMOCRACY IN" JOURNALISM 197 

a newspaper was published to furnish the news ; and 
editors were given a free hand. 

In recent years, however, the situation has been 
seriously altered. Practically all of the great papers 
of the country are now owned by men of wealth. A 
few rich and ambitious men control a good many of 
them. It is not impossible that any year might see 
one or two men in absolute control of hundreds of 
our leading organs of public opinion. Lord North- 
cliffe in England is the controlling shareholder of a 
great trust which owns some sixty publications. 
Herr Stinnes in Germany was reported recently to 
have bought up sixty -four papers to push his propa- 
ganda. With the strong forces making for central- 
ization and combination in American business, it is 
surprising that no greater mergers have been made as 
yet in this field. Possibly there is already more cen- 
tralization of control than is made public. At any 
rate, we have Mr. Hearst, with his many newspapers 
and magazines, and certain other fairly large-scale 
manipulators of opinion. 

Then we have the Associated Press, which has al- 
most a monopoly of the news-gathering sei-vice. The 
Manager of this agency is said to have remarked re- 
cently that he was more powerful than the President 
of the United States. If his censorship of the news 
is as autocratic and as drastic as is commonly re- 
ported, that remark may well be true. He who can 
select the news upon which millions of readers are 
to be fed every day has an enormous, if unseen, in- 
fluence upon the creation of the popular will. A few 
rich newspapers can afford to maintain their own 
special correspondents. But the great majority of 
them are almost wholly dependent, and all are very 
largely dependent, upon the despatches which the 



198 DEMOCKACY 

Associated Press correspondents send and the Asso- 
ciated Press office allows to get by. 

Any one who knows the newspaper business from 
the inside knows that most newspapers are very auto- 
cratically run. The editors and reporters know what 
topics must be avoided, what news hushed up, what 
men and movements must be given no publicity. They 
know, on the other hand, the individuals and the cor- 
porations, the events and movements, which are to be 
written up. Not only are the editorials thoroughly 
partisan — that we expect, and discount — but the news 
itself is editorialized. The headlines emphasize what 
the policy of the paper intends to thrust upon the 
attention of the readers. The position, prominent or 
out-of-the-way, given to an article, the manner of the 
write-up, the excisions and emphases, all work to the 
same end. The result is that, to an extent not realized 
as yet by most readers, our newspapers have become 
organs of propaganda rather than impartial records 
of fact. 

The motives behind this warping of the news are 
not difficult to understand. In the first place, a news- 
paper is a money-making enterprise, like any other 
business; the owner knows his public, and, other 
things equal, wishes to print the sort of thing that 
will sell the greatest number of copies. What this 
will be, depends upon the particular clientele of the 
paper; Mr. Hearst's papers pander to the poorer 
classes, while the Boston Transcript must please its 
Back Bay buyers. It is not surprising, therefore, 
that we find the former papers portraying financial 
magnates as brutal profiteers, and headlining every 
scandal affecting big business, whereas the latter 
harps upon the unreasonableness of labor and its 
grafting leaders. 



DEMOCRACY IN JOURNALISM 199 

But our newspapers do not live on the money paid 
for copies, they live on the money paid in by adver- 
tisers. Over two-thirds of the total receipts of the 
average newspaper today come from advertising; in 
some cases the proportion is said to run as high as 
ninety per cent. It is obvious, therefore, that to incur 
the displeasure of the big advertisers would mean 
financial ruin. The loss of the department-store ad- 
vertising alone might well make just the difference 
between success and bankruptcy. Naturally, then, 
scandals that involve their owners must not be pub- 
lished, conditions in the stores reflecting upon the 
management must be ignored, legislation whose effect 
would be to involve the owners in expense must 
not be advocated, or must perhaps be vigorously op- 
posed. 

There are many other ways in which a newspaper 
can serve the financial interests of its owner. For 
example, if, as is the case with at least one of our 
great newspaper-owners, he is the possessor of rich 
oil-lands in Mexico, he will be likely to advocate in 
his paper a ^'strong" policy toward that unhappy 
country. Headlines and sensational reports will em- 
phasize the unsettled condition of policies there, every 
case of injury to Americans or their property will be 
exploited; and in all sorts of indirect ways the im- 
pression will be spread that intervention is necessary 
and righteous. 

If the owner of the paper has invested heavily in 
steel, he will naturally hush up any news that reflects 
upon the conduct of that great industry. He will op- 
pose agitation tending toward the raising of wages or 
shortening of hours for the laborers, lest dividends de- 
crease. If there is a strike, the paper will be full of 
indignation at the labor-unions, and give space to 



200 DEMOCRACY 

every item of news and every rumor that will dis- 
credit the strikers in the eyes of the public. 

These are not mere hypotheses. This is just the 
sort of thing that is going on continually. Usually 
the reader knows nothing about the owner of the 
paper he reads — what his particular interests are, 
and the interests of his friends. If he is naive, he lets 
his mind absorb the attitude of the paper; if he is 
worldly-wise, he becomes cynical with regard to every- 
thing he reads. But even the most cynical reader, 
unless he is continually on his guard, will be in- 
fluenced unconsciously by the subtle ^'suggestion'' of 
the "stories" in the paper. 

Of course, most papers are partisan when it comes 
to politics. Even tlie ^^independent" papers are not 
impartial ; they simply reserve the right to change 
sides when platforms or candidates present a new is- 
sue. A Democratic paper fills its readers' minds 
with "news" and editorials that show the worthiness 
of its cause; a republican paper has no difficulty in 
finding news that points to the necessity of a Repub- 
lican administration, and its editorials would move 
the hardest-hearted to the conviction that the true 
patriot will vote that ticket. Since the Democrats 
read their papers and the Republicans theirs (few 
people read more than one daily paper), every one is 
strengthened daily in his own convictions. Of dis- 
passionate search for truth and presentation of all 
sides of a question there is hardly a sign. 

Political issues change from decade to decade, can- 
didates come and go. And it often makes little 
enough difference in the end which party won at the 
polls. But there is something of far deeper import 
than the alignment between the two traditional 
parties. It is the fact that almost all of the daily 



BEM0I3RACY IN JOUKNALISM 201 

papers of the country, except a few labor and socialist 
papers, which have few readers outside their own 
particular clientele, represent the "upper class" point 
of view. Their presentation of that point of view 
may be interrupted now and then by the ''human 
interests" of a story ; as when the misery of strikers' 
families is played up, or some scandal affecting the 
employers. The desire to get a ''beat," together with 
some measure of natural human sympathy, and all 
sorts of other motives, enter in. And of course there 
is no one homogeneous "upper class point of view"; 
there are all sorts of conflicting ideas, jealousies, dis- 
putes, all of them more or less represented in the 
press. But the underlying fact remains that year in 
and year out the daily press of the country reflects 
the point of view, the judgments and desires, of the 
wealthy class. Because of the power of the press, 
that general point of view has an influence upon 
affairs far out of proportion to the numbers or intel- 
lectual ability of this class. 

Perhaps we think that this point of view of the 
wealthy class is the right point of view, and so re- 
joice in its grip upon the organs that form public 
opinion. But this is not the democratic ideal. That 
ideal was not the ideal of a class-government, but of 
a government by the people. The idea of a free press 
was the idea of a press that should freely represent 
the ideas of all classes of the people. It has become 
increasingly clear that this ideal cannot be attained 
merely by a laissez-faire policy on the part of the 
Government. Every one is free to publish a paper, if 
he chooses, and to say what he wills; the Government 
will not interfere — except during a war, or while the 
war-psychology lasts. But it has become the case 
that to publish a paper requires a great deal of 



202 DEMOCRACY 

capital; and it is impossible to make a paper finan- 
cially successful if the great financial interests dis- 
approve its policy. In the older sense, we have a 
^^free press.'' But that sort of freedom is not enough. 
Practically, a great deal of opinion gets very inade- 
quately represented in the press; a great many facts 
of importance are exaggerated, played up, colored, 
twisted, so that a false impression results. Most peo- 
ple who would like to get their facts before the public 
are not really free to do so, because they cannot 
afford to. 

We must not suppose that there is any conspiracy 
here, or even a universal scramble for money, regard- 
less of ideals. The "upper-class" people who run 
our newspapers are, for the most part, average hu- 
man beings morally, as well as above the average in- 
tellectually. Many of them have personal ambitions, 
of one sort or other, to serve, and all of them are 
bound to make their papers pay a good return on the 
investment. But a very large part of the bias of their 
papers is the natural expression of sincere convictions 
on their part. A man who has a thousand shares of 
steel is likely to believe with all his heart that trade- 
unions are vicious, and that excess-profits-taxes are 
inexpedient. A strike even in a textile-mill in which 
he has no financial interest is apt to arouse his honest 
condemnation. We are all prejudiced, though we 
would all resent the accusation. 

The radical press, the socialist and labor papers, 
are just as prejudiced as the more widely read dailies. 
Their prejudices are, indeed, more conscious and more 
obvious, and for that reason less subtly dangerous; 
they are avowedly partisan organs. In any case, 
their circle of readers is comparatively small. And if 
the big dailies were trustworthy venders of news, 



DEMOCBACY IN JOURNALISM 203 

their readers would be still fewer. The real problem, 
then, is with these big metropolitan newspapers which 
purport to be colorless media for the transmission of 
news but are actually controlled and colored by the 
policy of their upper-class owners. 

What is wrong, let us repeat, about this class-con- 
trol of the press is not that this particular class is 
worse than other classes. If the rich are, on the 
wiiole, over-complacent with things as they are, and 
over-callous to the wrongs of the poor, the poor, on 
their part, are apt to be bitter and unintelligent. 
No other class of people would run the papers better, 
perhaps. What is wrong is that any class should have 
such monopoly-control. 

The harm done by our profit-seeking journalism is 
of many sorts. There is, for one thing, the sensation- 
alism of the ^^yellow" press — the sickening succession 
of murders, suicides, divorces, scandals, crimes, and 
gossip with which the papers that cater to the less 
educated are filled. These stories appeal to deep- 
rooted human intincts; and the strength of the in- 
stincts grows by feeding. It is not socially expe- 
dient that men and women, boys and girls, should 
live on this diet. But the papers that exploit all this 
human vice and passion sell well. It is very doubtful 
if a democratic control of journalism would tolerate 
this; a people that has voted to deny itself alcoholic 
drinks could rather easily be aroused to the moral 
harmfulness of this daily flaunting of the cruelty and 
sensuality in men. But while a few private owners 
have autocratic control of these yellow papers, we 
are helpless. 

A far less obvious, but in the end perhaps more seri- 
ous, evil is the constant reflection on the part of 
nearly all of our ^^respectable" papers, of the common 



204 DEMOCRACY 

and accepted ideas of the time. A newspaper cannot 
hope to succeed, against well-established rivals, if it 
champions unpopular opinions. We are in desperate 
need of new ideas and ideals, or at least of new 
applications of old ideals. But to break awav from 
established respectabilities would mean severe criti- 
cism : and newspapei-s can not afford to rtin that risk. 
They can choose between a Republican or Democratic 
policy : occasionally, when some great poptilar revolt 
takes place, such as the Populist or Progressive move- 
ments, they may swing with the tide. But in general 
they must cling to familiar and safe ideas. This 
means the stereotyping of opinion. It means an un- 
fair advantage to the conservatives and stand-patters 
— and, consequently, the increase of unrest and un- 
derground revolutionaiy propaganda. If the Ameri- 
can press were more hospitable to minority views, 
gave space to accounts of meetings and addi^esses 
representing the newer movments of thought, instead 
of. as is now commonlv the case, either iimorinff or 
misrepresenting and ridiculing them, we should be 
less in danger of mental stagnation among the upper 
classes, with class-consciousness and bitterness on 
the part of those who find it so difficult to get the ear 
of the public. 

The respectable point of view, which the news- 
papers instinctively represent, usually rests upon 
some deep-rooted human instinct. For instance, the 
instinct of patriotism, together with the combative 
instinct, ensures the popularity of a paper which 
adopts a jingoistic tone. The responsibility for 
arousing a war-fever rests largely upon the shoulders 
of the newspaper-owners. If the war is. indeed, a 
necessary one. they can be thus of enormous service. 
But if the war would be an unnecessaiw and un- 



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206 DEl^rOCRACY 

months of the Communist regime the public has been 
led to believe that it was on the verge of falling. One 
after another of the anti-Bolshevist leaders was re- 
ported as about to win his campaign. Day after day, 
the news as reported in the American press was col- 
ored by the hopes or policy of the correspondents, or 
of the managers of the Associated Press, or of tlie 
newspaper-owners, or of all together. How much 
conscious suppression and distortion of the news 
there was, an outsider can not judge. To a large ex- 
tent, no doubt, all of these people were gulled by their 
hopes. But the point is, that there were other news- 
gatherers in the field who had other reports to make, 
which time proved to be more accurate. These report- 
ers had no way of getting their news and their prog- 
nostications before the public. 

Now this it not in the least an argument for Bol- 
shevism. Bolshevism is obviously quite alien to 
Americanism. The point is, that however we dislike 
Bolshevism, we ought to be able to get the truth about 
it from our newspapers. At least, we ought not to be 
so steadily and persistently misled as we have been. 
Time after time, the reports and prophecies of our 
greatest newspapers turned out to be mistaken. This 
means that with respect to one of the most critical 
events going on in the contemporary world, the 
American people could not get correct information. 

This instance has been specifically cited, because a 
very searching non-partisan investigation was made 
of the distortion of news of the Russian situation, and 
the facts are easily accessible. But a similar un- 
trustworthiness could be shown to exist in the report- 
ing of many matters where strong feelings and vital 
interests are involved. 

It may be that much of the trouble resides in the 



DEMOCEACT IN JOURNALISM 207 

lack of adequate training of reporters and correspond- 
ents. But if the newspaper owners demanded ac- 
curacy and impartiality, ''the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth," they could certainly come 
much nearer to getting it. We must not be surprised 
that many people today are speaking of the "kept 
press." Not only the socialists and agitators, but 
many people of very respectable views. It would be 
easy to quote page after page of the most vigorous 
indictments from the pens of ex-newspaper men. It 
is easy to get greatly excited over the unfairness and 
unreliability of our most efficient and honored news- 
papers. It is more to the point to ask, what can be 
done about it? 

The main trouble obviously lies in the fact that the 
control of our press is highly autocratic. A more 
democratic control would serve at least to correct the 
bias and neutralize the selfish interest of the present 
owners. If the newspaper men themselves, the editors 
and reporters, were allowed to determine the policy 
of the paper, with regard to news and editorials, we 
should doubtless fare better than we do. But after 
all, a comparatively small group of men would still 
have a dangerous power. The public as a whole must 
reserve the right to ultimate control of that great 
public institution, the Press. It is as important, in 
its way, as the public schools. The only ultimate 
solution can be a Press which is, by law, made omni- 
partisan. Its columns must be open to reports of 
facts and expressions of opinion from every stratum 
of public opinion. 

One way to attain this democratic ideal would be 
to require that a certain number of columns should be 
at the disposal of each of the national parties, and 
perhaps of other important groups, such as employ- 



208 DEMOCRACY 

ei*s' as&ooiations, the trade-unions, an association of 
college-graduates, etc. These columns must be un- 
censored by the newspaper owner or editor. In this 
way facts and opinions that seem important to any 
I'espectable group could be got fairly before the pub- 
lic, and eyery newspaper would become, instead of a 
more or less unrecognized organ of priyate opinion 
and selected news, a real open forum for discussion of 
contemporary affairs, a way by which the members 
of a democracy may talk to one another and learn of 
eyerything important that is being done and said. 

There are yarious ways in which the impartiality 
of the Press could be secured ; there is no space here 
to discuss their relatiye adyantages. Eyery reform, 
howeyer, must recognize that the Press is an institu- 
tion of public seryice. Its potentialities for the educa- 
tion of the people are almost limitless. It could be 
used to create an intelligent democracy, by yoicing the 
yarious existing opinions upon eyery problem and 
noting accurately all releyant facts. If this ideal 
can be attained under the indiyidimlistic system of 
priyate ownei'ship. well and good. But if the owners 
of the Press and of the great newsgathering agencies 
persist in using their power irresponsibly, for the 
furthering of their own particular yiews and intei*ests, 
the ptiblic will liud a way to limit or end that power. 
A "free press" must be taken to mean not a press that 
any one who can afford to can buy and run as he 
chooses, but a press free from dictation at the 
hands of any interest, free to serye the people as a 
whole. Nothing short of that will realize om* ideal 
of Democracy in journalism. 



DEMOCRACY IN JOURNALISM 209 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism: The Public Press. 

Henry Holt, Commercialism and Journalism. 

W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, Chap. IX. 

Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the News. 

O. G. Yillard, Press Tendencies and Dangers. 

Upton Sinclair, The Brass Chech. 

D. Dibblee, The Newspaper. 

J. E. Rogers, The American Newspaper. 

E. A. Ross, Changing AmeHca, Chap. YII. 

Henry George, Jr., The Menace of Privilege, Book YII. 
G. H. Payne, History of Journalism in the United States. 
"Lysis", in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 121, p. 815. 
C. H. Grasty, iu Atlantic Monthly, vol. 124, p. 577. 



CHAPTER XIX 

DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY 

The ideal of Democracy demands that every adult 
human being should have a voice in every decision 
that directly affects his welfare. Toward this ideal 
the impulses that we may group together under the 
term ^^The American spirit" have been pushing us. 
But powerful forces have been blocking the way. The 
discovery that politics can be made to yield a sub- 
stantial livelihood to the ^^insiders" has gone far 
toward thwarting the popular will and nullifying the 
achievement of political democracy. The discovery 
that the Press can be bought up by a few people and 
used to push their personal and class interests, and 
the causes in which they believe, has gone far toward 
robbing the people of a Press really free to tell the 
whole truth and to express all shades of opinion. 

But the Ballot and the Press are, after all, pri- 
marily means to an end — the control by the people, 
for the people's good, of the conditions of their life. 
And there is a discovery that has done more to 
thwart democracy than either of the two we have men- 
tioned — the discovery that industry and commerce 
can be largely bought up and controlled, in their own 
interest, by a comparatively few rich men. So Big 
Business has arisen, feudal in its conception ; a great 
mechanism whereby a small class of men have, within 
certain legal limits, complete dictation over the main 
activities of the countiy and the conditions amid 

210 



DEMOCEACY IN INDUSTEY 211 

which the masses of men and women must work and 
live. These conditions are, as we saw in earlier 
chapters, often such as to take the heart out of the 
workers, and to wear out their lives. They may be 
remedied, one by one, by piecemeal legislation forced 
upon the owners of industry. But the fundamental 
reason for their existence is that the big industries are 
autocratically controlled. If those who suffer from 
these evils were to have direct voice with regard to 
them, they would quickly be mended. 

When the great economists of an earlier day advo- 
cated the laissez-faire policy in business, they saw 
in that policy an opportunity of escape from a tyran- 
nous state. They did not realize that it would result 
in "the exploitation of the economically weak by the 
economically strong, and the increase among the 
masses of that hopeless form of poverty which we call 
industrial poverty.'^ But this has been the actual 
result of a system based upon the principle 

"Let him take who hath the power. 
And let him keep who can." 

There are many employers who treat their employees 
kindly ; there are some classes of employees better off 
in the conditions and rewards of their work than some 
employers. But because the despotism is at times 
a benevolent one, it is none the less a despotic system, 
far from the ideal of a true democracy. 

Our working life is, for most of us, far the most im- 
portant part of our life. And yet the tardiness of our 
application of the democratic principle to industry is 
easily explicable when we remember the very recent 
growth of the power of capitalism. The founders of 
our republic were independent farmers and artisans, 
or professional men, or in business on such a small 



212 DEMOCEACY 

scale that they could know their hired helpers per- 
sonally. The rise of the great soulless corporations 
is a matter almost of yesterday ; the power of organ- 
ized wealth is a new power in America. We have 
hardly had time to realize the momentous change that 
has quietly been taking place in our institutions, 
and making Democracy for masses of people little 
more than a name. 

A large proportion of our people are still independ- 
ent workers, controlling their own hours and condi- 
tions of work. But an increasing proportion have 
become simply ^'hands'' — a labor commodity, to be 
bought as cheaply as possible, and used for the mak- 
ing of profits for the owners of the mine or factory 
or mill or business house. The impersonal nature of 
the corporation tends to make it heartless. It exists 
to "get results" ; in many cases the owners know little 
of the conditions under which the laborers work or 
the scale upon which they are paid. The result is that 
it takes years of effort and the bitterest struggles to 
win for many of the workers even the minimum decen- 
cies of life. 

The rest of us suffer too, not only indirectly, as 
from the danger of the disease- and vice-breeding 
slums in which underpaid laborers are forced to live, 
but directly, through the indifference of powerful 
money-making corporations to the public interest. It 
took many years of struggle to get our pure food 
laws, our meat inspection laws, our safety device 
laws, and the like. We still find ourselves helpless 
when some corporation or group of corporations de- 
cide to stop production in order to create a relative 
scarcity and raise the price of their product. If the 
move is skillfully executed, a few owners may make 
a considerable profit. In the meantime thousands 



DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY 213 

of families suffer privation for want of work, and the 
public has to pay a quite unnecessary price for what 
it buys. A speculator corners the ice supply in sum- 
mer; we all pay high prices for ice; in the poorer 
homes the babies die; a few men make handsome 
profits. 

Perhaps the bulk of our business is carried on with 
a reasonable degree of public spirit and fairness. The 
opportunities for exploitation are cliecked not only 
by the inertia of those who do not realize their oppor- 
tunities, and by human kindliness or public spirit that 
refuses to seize them, but also by the pressure of pub- 
lic opinion, by the competition of rivals, by the power 
of organized labor, and by various other forces. Still, 
benevolent as for the most part our Big Business may 
be, it can not be called democratic. And the argu- 
ments for democracy that we discussed in Chapter 
XV apply nowhere more forcibly than to this situa- 
tion. It is not right for any single individual or small 
group of men to have such power over the lives of 
masses of men as the rulers of our large-scale indus- 
tries and business-houses have. Our forefathers did 
not foresee this situation when they expounded the 
ideal of Democracy ; it is for us to apply their ideal 
to present-day conditions. 

Does this mean Socialism? Not at all. Socialism 
is a particular theory, with much truth in it and much 
error, not very widely held in this country, and at 
any rate outside the province of this volume. What 
is indicated is simply the recognition of the demo- 
cratic principle as applying to the conditions of a 
man's working life. Every industry of sufficient size 
to need it should have a board of representatives of 
the workers, and a written code of procedure. There 
must be no more arbitrary decisions by owners or 



214 DEMOCRACY 

managers; the people who do the work must be con- 
sulted; or, rather, decisions must be made in accord- 
ance with jointly accepted objective standards, and 
impartial investigation. Industry must be ruled by 
a code of laws and precedents that commend them- 
selves to the workers in the industry and to the public 
at large, instead of being subject to the caprices and 
selfish interests of the men who supply the capital. 

For example, no worker should be discharged with- 
out fair trial — ^'due process of law" ; he should not be 
subject to dismissal, as is now often the case, because 
he has joined a Union, or because he is suspected of 
holding "radical" ideas, or because the foreman has 
conceived a grudge against him. In these days of 
specialized skill, especially in the industries that are 
highly organized, for a man to lose his job may be 
sheer ruin. His life should not thus be at the mercy 
of caprice or grudge or prejudice. He must have a 
fair hearing before his peers, and be dismissed only 
for just cause. 

So with regard to safety appliances, sanitary condi- 
tions, fire protection, hours of work, and the like. 
These are matters that affect the workers more than 
anybody else ; it is their right to have a share in the 
decisions with regard to them. When it comes to the 
more important questions, concerning wages, business 
policy, and price of product, the public too has its 
rights, and must have its voice in the decision. The 
working out of the particular plan by which workers 
and public shall share responsibility with the owners 
of the capital is a matter too detailed for this little 
volume. But many such schemes are in operation 
already, and the general idea is accepted by a number 
of the most conspicuous owners of industiy. The 
process of democratization of industiy will run 



DEMOCKACY IN INDUSTKY 215 

parallel, perhaps, to the process by which abso- 
lute monarchy gave way to the constitutional mon- 
archy of such a country as England. It is earnestly 
to be hoped that capitalists generally will have the 
vision and the patriotism to co-operate in this move- 
ment. An obstinate refusal, if persisted in, would 
be a fruitful soil for revolution. 

Of course it is a nuisance to have to keep to a code, 
or to consult a board of representatives, or to yield 
to a majority vote. Autocracy is always simpler than 
democracy, and more agreeable for the autocrats. 
And of course the present ^^owners" of industry will 
often be inclined to look upon the democratic move- 
ment as trespassing upon their "rights.'' But the 
private ownership of the capital used in an industry, 
the taking for private profit of the excess wealth pro- 
duced by the industry, and the lodgment of exclusive 
control in the hands of these owners, are not the only 
conceivable conditions of the carrying on of the indus- 
try. Our system of private ownership of this wealth, 
which is socially produced, will be tolerated only if 
it consents to such abridgement of its concentration 
of power as will make it tolerable. On our economic 
system the owners take what they choose of the profits 
of an industry for their own enjoyment and keep what 
they choose as capital to produce more wealth. We 
believe that this is the best system; at any rate, we 
mean to give it a thorough trial before discarding it. 
But such grave abuses have crept into the system that 
unless they are corrected there will certainly develop 
a growing movement toward the abolition of the sys- 
tem, root and branch, as happened in that unhappy 
country, Russia. 

The development of democracy in industry will 
not only ensure reasonable hours and conditions of 



216 DEMOCEACY 

work, and security of employment, for the workers, 
it will ultimately make for a fairer division of the 
profits of industry, now so absurdly apportioned. Our 
present concentration of wealth results in large meas- 
ure from our present concentration of power. The 
distribution of the profits of the great industries that 
employ thousands of workers ought to be decided not 
by a handful of men but by the community as a whole. 
The few ^'owners" now usually take an exorbitant 
share for themselves. This exorbitant share is partly 
squandered in luxurious living, partly used to in- 
crease, by investment, the wealth of the already 
wealthy, and partly used to maintain the political 
bosses in existence and through them to push or 
strangle legislation. It is safe to predict that we 
shall never have a diffusion of wealth consonant with 
our ideal of Equality, or a political system free from 
organized large-scale graft, until we have a consider- 
able measure of democracy applied to industry. 

This is what is meant, or should be meant, by the 
dictum that the cure for the ills of democracy is more 
democracy. The money that makes political "corrup- 
tion" a profitable game comes chiefly from the rich 
owners of industry, and the owners of our natural re- 
sources — to a large extent the same set of people. 
These men, we must repeat, are not usually dishonest 
in intent. They think of themselves as protecting 
their legitimate interests. But the thwarting of the 
popular will that results, and the fortifying of the 
privileges of the rich, put off by so much the realiza- 
tion of the' American ideal. A valuable remedy for 
political corruption may be found in a Short Ballot, 
with concentration of responsibility and delegated 
government. That reform would enable the people to 
wage a more successful war against the bosses who 



DEMOCKACY IN INDUSTRY 21Y 

are in politics for their personal profit. But there 
will always be a war between the vigilant among the 
people and the bosses so long as a class of owners are 
free to take as much as they can grab of the profits 
of industry and to use a large slice of that wealth for 
the direct and indirect subsidizing of legislation. 

The main motive for the opposition to democracy 
in industry is, of course, the natural desire of those 
who enjoy the power and the profits to keep them. 
Democracy will mean a limitation of power, and, 
in the case of the profiteers, a limitation of profit; 
because neither the irresponsible power nor the con- 
gestion of wealth is socially justifiable. Concentra- 
tion of power there must be, for efiiciency, and for 
the location of responsibility. But it must be re- 
sponsible power, power exercised in the interests of 
the industi'y as a whole, the interests of the workers 
and of the public, as well as the interests of the 
owners. Workers will still be discharged for incom- 
petence or laziness, managers will still have pride in 
their departments and strive for efflciency. But the 
value of the results attained will be measured by 
the well-being secured for the workers and the low 
price secured for the public rather than by the profits 
secured for the owners. As it is now, we worship the 
god of Business Prosperity. But Business Prosperity 
means big profits for the owners ; it may coincide with 
starvation wages or cruel tyranny for the workers and 
high prices for the consumer. Democratic control 
would not tolerate the worship of such a god. 

But would not democratic control, by limiting the 
profits of the owners, lessen their interest in the 
business and slacken their energy? Would managers 
bound by a democratically determined code of pro- 
cedure have the same incentive for striving for effi- 



218 DEMOCRACY 

ciency? Would the workers, if freed from the arbi- 
trary despotism of owners and managers, work as 
hard as they do now? It is a matter of psychology; 
the results would certainly be complex. We lack ex- 
perience of a thoroughly democratized society. As 
it is, the brainiest men keep clear, in general, of the 
various attempts at democratic enterprise — produc- 
ers' co-operative societies, and the like — because they 
can make far higher profits for themselves in the 
scramble of private business. If all the Big Business 
of the country were democratized, the men of brains 
would be forced to find their field of activity within 
it. And there is no real reason to suppose that their 
energy and ingenuity would be lessened because they 
were on salary instead of facing an uncertain but 
unlimited profit. 

If it is true that salaried men, or men whose possi- 
bility of profits is limited to the approximate level of 
a high salary, and whose power is constitutional 
rather than autocratic, will not work, as a class, so 
hard as those who have unfettered opportunity of 
power and profits, then we must put up with that loss 
of energy. To this subject we shall return in discus- 
sing our American ideal of Efficiency. It may be 
enough at this point to suggest that this possible loss 
of interest on the part of the present entrepreneur 
class would probably be insignificant as compared 
with the increase of interest on the part of millions 
of workers who would gain a stake in their life-work. 
It would become their business as well as their em- 
ployers'. The gravest problem in industry today is 
how to get the workers to put their heart into their 
work, how to develop their morale. It is safe to say 
that the only ultimately successful way of reviving 
our waning industrial morale is through the admis- 



DEMOCRACY IK INDUSTRY 219 

sion of the workers to participation in the control of 
the industry. 

The big industries are at present the seat of a con- 
tinuous class-conflict. Simmering beneath the sur- 
face there is always agitation and unrest. The small 
owner-class are the legal ^^insiders" in industry, the 
great mass of workers are simply hirelings, with no 
security of tenure, no personal stake in the business. 
No wonder the sight of big profits going to the owners 
awakens resentment; no wonder that decisions and 
policies that affect the lives of the workers adversely 
engender bitterness. There is no need of ^'Bolshevist" 
propaganda to explain this ever-latent hostility. The 
interests of owners and workers are obviously op- 
posed. So long as this is the case, we shall have 
strikes and sabotage and soldiering on the job. The 
only escape is to diminish the separateness of function 
between the two classes, to merge their interests. 
Peace may exist in an ignorant and convention-ridden 
society between autocrats and their hirelings; not in 
a democracy. The old idea was that laborers should 
be docile, tame, submissive ; the American spirit makes 
them independent in thought, eager to find scope 
for initiative and personality, determined to have 
their share of profits and power. It is too late to 
hope to stabilize the autocratic ideal ; we must put our 
backs into making the democratic ideal work. 

It is not the extension of bureaucratic government 
control that we need ; government undertakings have 
not often been truly democratic. What we need is 
more self-determination, more individualism, more 
participation by everybody in the decisions in the field 
of his particular work. Industry must be conceived 
as a communal affair instead of as a private enter- 
prise hiiing multitudes of servile workers. Only in 



220 DEMOCRACY 

this way can we give dignity to the average man's life, 
a far horizon, and zest in his work. This is what we 
all really want, or would want if we thought about 
it enough — to be members of a self-governing com- 
munity of workers. It is what Mr. Gerald Stanley 
Lee means when he says, ^^The people have decided 
to be parts of We-Machines. We have been cogs in 
other people's I-Machines long enough.'' 

It is certain that a more democratic management 
of industry will lead to many blunders, and to much 
^^graft." Whether to more blunders and more graft 
than our existing system, no one can say. Our pres- 
ent system is probably not on the whole more than ten 
per cent efficient; its striking successes are few and 
its failures many. But however that may be, progress 
has to proceed by trial and error. Political democ- 
racy has blundered so much, and been so honey- 
combed with corruption, that its enemies have deemed 
it far worse than autocracy. Yet it has spread and 
spread, until it is obviously to be the universal policy. 
The adventures of democratized industry will be 
many. But it is surely coming; because the masses 
are learning to want it, and learning that they can 
have it. The ballot is the camel's nose in the tent; 
nothing can prevent the camel from coming all the 
way. in now. To dam the current will be but to make 
its eventual coming more tempestuous and destruc- 
tive. That energy is wasted that opposes it ; only that 
energy and thought are fruitfully spent which go to 
the working out of concrete plans and to the educa- 
tion of the people to use wisely their coming power. 

Business men will, of course, resist the transition; 
not only those who profit by their power, but millions 
of others who have grown up to think in their terms. 
With their warnings of the danger of costly blunders, 



DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY 221 

decreased production, and a possible industrial chaos, 
we may sympathize. But if they raise the cry of 
loyalty to American principles, we shall know what 
to say. Efficient, feasible, democracy may or may 
not be; but it is at least the ideal to which we are 
committed, the ideal for which our forefathers bled, 
the ideal for which but just now our sons and brothers 
bled. To be obliged to argue this point at all shows 
how many people have as yet failed to grasp what the 
idea of Democracy really implies. 

During the War a brilliant speaker before the 
American Academy of Social and Political Science 
uttered these memorable words: "We stand com- 
mitted as never before to the realization of democracy 
in America. We who have gone to war to insure 
democracy in the world will have raised an aspiration 
here that will not end in the overthrow of the Prus- 
sian autocracy . . . We shall call that man unAmeri- 
can and no patriot who prates of liberty in Europe 
and resists it at home. A force is loose in America 
as well." That this force may be used not for destruc- 
tion but for construction should be our prayer and 
our earnest concern. Not only must the world be 
made safe for democracy, but democracy itself must 
be unfolded into its completest meaning. What fur- 
ther developments may lie before democracy we can- 
not now say; but just now it needs much effort to 
free it from the forces which are strangling it in pol- 
itics, in journalism, and in industry. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

J. G. Brooks, The Social Unrest. 

Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics, Chapters IV, V. 

H. G. Wells, Social Forces in England and America, pp. 112-154. 

Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals, Chap. II. 

G. H. D. Cole and Mellor, The Meaning of Industrial Freedom. 



222 DEMOCKACY 

Sydney and Beatrice Webb, Indmtrial Democracy. 

R. W. Sellars, The Next Step in Democracy. 

J. Mackaye, Americanized Socialism. 

W. W. Willoughby, Social Justice, Chap. IX. 

T. N. Carver, Essays in Social Justice, Chap. VI. 

C. H. Douglas, Economic Democracy. 

John Spargo, Americanism and Social Democracy, 

P. W. Litchfield, The Industrial Bepuhlic. 

W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, Chap. XYII. 

Ordway Tead, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 122, p. 178. 



PART FOUR 
EFFICIENCY 



CHAPTER XX 

BIG BUSINESS 

We are all, in our patriotic moments, proud of our 
ideal of Democracy, and of the extent to which it has 
already been successfully embodied in our institu- 
tions. But as an actual working motive in the lives 
of successful Americans it does not begin to have 
the potency of another ideal — efficiency. Efficiency 
it not one of the great historic slogans that we re- 
peat on the Fourth of July, and attribute to Washing- 
ton or Lincoln. But when the American traveller 
boasts of his country abroad, what he is most apt to 
speak of is the success of our big business, of our great 
transportation systems, and the other achievements 
in organization of our industrial order. And most 
foreign observers have given a verdict similar to 
that of Arnold Bennett's: ^'It seems to me that 
the brains and the imagination of Ameiica shine 
superlatively in the conception and ordering of its 
vast organizations of human beings, and of machin- 
ery, and of the two combined . . . For me they were 
the proudest material achievements, and essentially 
the most poetical achievements, of the United States.'^ 
Because of this widespread pride in organization 
and efficiency, America has often been sneered at as 
a land of "materialists." But efficiency means the 
saving of human labor, its consequent release from 
concern with the mechanics of life, and greater free- 
dom to pursue ideal ends. The simple peasant life 

225 



226 EFFICIENCY 

idealized by Tolstoy, the cottage handicraft life ideal- 
ized by Ruskin, have their allurement for an age of 
machinery. But actually, such a life means longer 
hours of work, a harder, less human life, than 
efficiently organized industry necessitates. It is true 
that the end has often been lost sight of in preoccupa- 
tion with the means ; masses of workers have not yet 
won the greater leisure, the pleasanter conditions of 
work, the larger purchasing power, for which the effi- 
cient organization of human labor opens the way. 
The benefits of our industrial efficiency have not yet 
been properly distributed. To be a worthy ideal, 
Efficiency must lose its savor of tyranny and ruth- 
lessness and self-seeking, and go hand in hand with a 
true Equality and Democracy. But in this way, as 
an integral part of our national ideal. Efficiency 
can not be overemphasized. 

Just what efficiency in the ordering of human rela- 
tions requires is a problem at which generations to 
come must work. But there is one tendency in Ameri- 
ica so far-reaching in its influence on the lives of our 
people that it must have our immediate attention. 
This is the movement toward combination and cen- 
tralization in business. There is no doubt that Big 
Business is an American ideal, and that, whatever 
impulses toward the exercising of power and the rak- 
ing in of profits may enter in as motives, its justifica- 
tion is its efficiency. Already we have many splendid 
examples of the saving of human labor and the dim- 
inution of the price of commodities, through the 
formation of our great corporations or ^'trusts." And 
there can be little doubt that the next generation 
will witness a great increase in this co-ordination in 
the business world. 

That, in general, the replacement of competitive 



BIG BUSINESS 227 

business by closely co-operative or highly centralized 
business does make for efficiency is indubitable. Lack 
of organization means, for one thing, unnecessary 
duplication of plant and equipment. For example, 
it has been estimated by reliable statisticians thai 
the flour-mills of the country could grind all the wheat 
produced in a year in 157 days, and that the saw 
mills could saw all the lumber consumed in a year 
in 120 days. Hundreds of millions of dollars are 
thus wasted by competitive business. Moreover, a 
great deal of time and money is lost in cross-routing, 
in separate purchasing and keeping of accounts. 

A great many economies possible to a large-scale 
organization are not practicable for the petty manu- 
facturer or tradesman. The big concern finds it 
profitable to utilize by-products. It can buy raw 
materials in larger quantities, and needs to keep less 
material on hand than was necessary in the case of 
the smaller concerns it replaces. It can afford ex- 
penditures beyond the means of the smaller concerns, 
it can avail itself of the most expert advice, and strike 
out more boldly into new lines. Having many strings 
to its bow, it needs less to fear a single mistake, and 
can be more enterprising than the small-scale manu- 
facturer or trader can usually dare to be. 

The wastefulness of competition is most striking 
in the field of distribution, including middlemen and 
retailers. In almost every line we see thousands of 
unnecessary shops, delivery wagons, and employees. 
For example, several years ago a survey was made 
of the distribution of milk in the city of Washington, 
D. C. ^^Sixty-five dealers supplied the city, by a 
wasteful process of duplicating storage, pasteurizing, 
cooling and delivery plants; in some apartment 
houses substantially every tenant was served by a 



228 EFFICIENCY 

different dealer. On one city block seventeen milk 
wagons were counted one morning, each serving one 
to three customers . . . Competitive conditions made 
it impossible to enforce proper care of bottles. Wash- 
ington was paying about $120,000 annually for milk 
bottles! A public service monopoly, enforcing penal- 
ties, as gas, water, and electric companies do, would 
save most of this. Under competition, the dealer 
attempting it would lose his trade to more lenient 
dealers . . . There was testimony of considerable 
quantities of milk going to waste at seasons when 
supply exceeded demands. Small dealers could not 
afford manufacturing plants to convert their surplus 
into butter, cheese, condensed and powdered milk. 
Under centralized control, the single distributor 
would utilize the surplus at all times." It is no won- 
der that it cost as much to distribute milk in Wash- 
ington as to produce it and get it into the hands of 
the distributors. 

This situation is fairly typical. A committee of 
the New York legislature stated, after investigation, 
that "under present competitive conditions it takes 
almost as many men to bring the dairyman's milk to 
the consumer as there are dairymen engaged in the 
production of milk, with all their employees. This 
is the result of the purely competitive basis upon 
which the business is handled.'' 

Or take testimony presented before a recent Con- 
gressional committee: "The conditions of the retail 
merchandizing business are very uneconomical. There 
are two or three times as many people, in my judg- 
ment, engaged in the retail business as should be." In 
a later statement, this witness said he "believed it 
would be nearer the truth to state that five times as 
many people are making a living out of the retail 



BIG BUSINESS 229 

shoe business as would be necessary to serve the 
public. This, of course, connotes that other retailing 
expenses are likewise excessive — rent, capital invest- 
ment, insurance, fixtures . . . and many more." 

One of our best-known retail merchants, Mr. Ed- 
ward Filene, in a magazine article published in 1920, 
declares that retail distribution, as at present con- 
ducted, practically doubles the price of the manufac- 
tured article to the consumer. ^'There is doubtless 
profiteering here and there in isolated cases, but the 
real criminal profiteer is unscientific method — gen- 
eral inefficiency of organization." 

In addition to this needless multiplication of equip- 
ment and effort in the process of distribution itself, 
there is an enormous waste in competitive advertis- 
ing. Hundreds of thousands of drummers spend their 
energies in persuading retailers, contractors, or con- 
sumers, to buy their goods rather than the other 
man's. Millions of dollars are spent in advertise- 
ments in newspapers, magazines, and circulars, and 
on billboards. The buyers, of course, have to pay this 
expense. Mr. Henry Holt has recently written, 
"Those who use the finer kinds of soap probably pay 
more for having it dinned into them to use a certain 
brand, than they pay for the soap itself." And "the 
country probably pays more for having its elementary 
schoolbooks argued and cajoled and bribed into use, 
than for the books themselves." These are two cases 
of a general truth. Wary buyers avoid much-adver- 
tised articles, realizing that in buying them they will 
have to pay for the advertising. It is said that the 
cost of advertising means an overhead charge of 
twenty-five per cent on American industry. 

The money spent in advertising is not wholly lost. 
It is desirable that new articles, as well as the merits 



230 EFFICIENCY 

of familiar articles, should be called to the attention 
of potential purchasers. Unhappily, competitive ad- 
vertising is so widely untrustworthy in its statements 
that it is, on the whole, perhaps as misleading as 
enlightening. It works on the mind rather as a 
quasi-hypnotic suggestion than as a channel of infor- 
mation. 

A more important aspect of the matter is the fact 
that advertising supports our new^spapers and maga- 
zines. If, because of the unification of the various 
industries and distributing agencies, advertising were 
no longer necessary to draw trade from rivals, most of 
these dailies and weeklies and monthlies would either 
have to increase very greatly the subscription price 
or receive a subsidy. The increase in price of news- 
papers and magazines w^ould be a calamity, since it 
would decrease the number of readers. On the other 
hand, their release from the need of pleasing the big 
advertisers would permit a great gain in honesty 
and nonpartisanship in presenting the news and ex- 
pressing opinions. A number of our most useful 
weeklies, and a few dailies and monthlies, are now 
endowed, and so independent of advertising. But in 
general, the problem of efficiency in business is wrapt 
up with the problem of journalism, as it is with the 
problem of politics, and many another problem. And 
this tangled inter-relation of problems is one reason 
why social progress in this direction, as in many 
others, is so slow\ 

There are many other advantages of business amal- 
gamation, as over against the anarchic struggle of 
nineteenth century business. Everyone's good ideas 
and methods become available for the whole business; 
whereas in a regime of competition, secrets are ©arc- 
fully guarded, patents give exclusive use of labor- 



BIG BUSINESS 231 

saving inventions to a few, and outdated methods and 
materials are perforce used by most. Further, Big 
Business can afford to maintain laboratories and ex- 
perts for the investigation of new inventions and 
methods. It passes fewer positions on, "in the fam- 
ily," to inefficient workers and managers, and offers 
more opportunity for the young man or woman of 
brains but without business conections. In these and 
other ways, a completely organized business can 
serve the public better than cut-throat business, in 
most cases, can. 

It is, of course, not always true that Big Business 
is more efficient than small-scale business. It depends 
upon the particular nature of the article manufac- 
tured or sold. Some businesses are in their nature 
local — as, a street-car system, a lighting-system. In 
other cases, as in the matter of coal, steel, oil, fertiliz- 
ers, etc., the whole world should be organized as one 
economic community. But whether its sphere is 
local or national or world-wide, the ideal of Efficiency 
demands that every business should, within its sphere, 
be free from waste and duplication of effort. This 
implies the elimination of the sort of competition 
wherein rivals seek to perform the same service. 
There may still be much rivalry between the different 
departments of a given business, between different 
plants, between diffierent producers or salesmen. 
But it will be a rivalry in the performance of co- 
operating tasks, not the sort of rivalry in which one 
man's success means another man's failure. 

The gain through this steering of effort into co- 
operative instead of antagonistic work is not merely 
material, it is mental and spiritual. Competitive 
business encourages hardness of heart and penalizes 
kindness. Man is pitted against man, not in a gener- 



232 EFFICIENCY 

ous spirit of emulation, as in competitive sports, but 
in a veritable struggle for existence. Legislation and 
government regulation can eliminate some of the more 
unscrupulous and anti-social acts devised in this 
struggle but it can never put an end to the manifold 
ways in which, under a competitive regime, one man 
or firm will selfishly seek to get the better of its 
competitors. The result of this struggle is, as we all 
know, a constant series of business failures, each 
meaning an economic loss to the community, often 
of considerable magnitude; and each meaning God 
only knows how much heartache and despair. 

It is often thought that this high tension under 
which competitive business lives^ — this perpetual fear 
of failure and this constant impulse to get the better 
of rivals — makes for a greater expenditure of energy 
and initiative; that monopolistic business tends to 
become slack and unenterprising, through the relax- 
ing of this pressure. The results achieved by the 
"trusts" in this country do not seem to bear out this 
contention; if there is a diminution of energy from 
this cause, its baneful effect is more than counter- 
balanced by the gains. It may be said, however, that 
it is neither normal nor desirable for human beings 
to live under such a strain as competitive business 
often entails, and that enough motives remain — pride 
in achievement, promotion and retention of position, 
increase in product and hence in financial return, and 
so on — to keep human energies whipped to the degree 
desirable. A more democratic control of business 
will undoubtedly tap new sources of energy and in- 
terest. And if, in the end, we should find that a 
completely organized industrial system was somewhat 
more easy-going than the feverish pace of some con- 
temporary businesses, we must remember that human 



BIG BUSINESS 233 

welfare is a bigger thing than material productivity. 
Freedom from strain, and a sense of security, are 
worth paying for. 

But there still remains the question, If the busi- 
ness of the country is thus fully organized, will not 
the benefits accrue to a small class, and further accen- 
tuate the inequalities of wealth and power already 
so marked? The remarkable achievements of our 
great corporations have had as their corollary the 
accumulation of great private fortunes, with a con- 
sequent power over journalism, politics, and legisla- 
tion that has awakened considerable popular distrust. 
It is not that we have had, usually, to pay higher 
prices for what we buy from the trusts. The old 
notion that competition suffices to keep prices down 
has gone by the board. The experience of recent 
years shows that there is as much profiteering by 
small concerns as by Big Business. When credit can 
be got, and the general impression of scarcity be- 
comes widespread, manufacturers and dealers will 
seize their opportunity for raising prices without any 
formal conspiracy or co-operation. In general, with 
certain exceptions, the formation of trusts has low- 
ered rather than raised the price of commodities to 
the consumer. 

But even if the public is actually no worse off, it 
is far more inclined to resent the concentrated profi- 
teering of a few big firms than the more diffused 
prosperity of many smaller firms. The profit-taking 
is far more conspicuous, and benefits fewer people. 
Moreover, there is a sense engendered of being at the 
mercy of these industrial autocrats which is repug- 
nant to our democratic sensibilities. And of course, 
there is a continual protest against absorption or 
elimination, on the part of the small manufacturers 



234 EFFICIENCY 

or dealers who find themselves elbowed out or threat- 
ened with ruin by their bigger rivals. The process 
by which the great corporations have won their power 
has often been unscrupulous, and still oftener is the 
result of a struggle which, however fair according to 
our current standards of business practice, has ac- 
tually resulted in the ruin of their former rivals. 

The effect upon the employees of this organization 
of business into large units has many aspects. The 
wealthy corporation can usually afford to pay better 
wages, to build more sanitary and comfortable fac- 
tories, to make working conditions in many ways 
pleasanter. Its conspicuousness makes it more liable 
to public criticism, and it is apt to feel more keenly 
the need of heeding such criticism. In many cases 
"welfare work" is being carried on by our big firms 
which would never have been possible to the smaller 
houses. 

On the other hand, the big corporation has so much 
more power, that when it chooses to lower wages, to 
oppose the unionization of employees, or in any other 
way to resist the desires of labor, it is a far more for- 
midable antagonist than the smaller competing firms. 
There is less personal contact of employer with em- 
ployees; it is usually harder for the employee with 
a grievance to get his case before his employer. And 
the ownership of stock by absentee shareholders 
makes a continuous urge for dividends which some- 
times results in a policy that is inhuman in the 
extreme. 

The opposition to Big Business comes, then, from 
several quarters. It comes from the owners of small 
factories and shops, who do not want to give up their 
independence and become parts of a larger concern. 
It comes from labor-unions, that fear the increase of 



BIG BUSINESS 235 

power of the employers, which may make it harder 
for them to succeed in their efforts to get fairer re- 
muneration and better working conditions. It comes 
from the public, that sees with apprehension this con- 
centration of wealth and power. The result has been 
a series of "anti-trust' ' laws, and repeated pronounce- 
ments like that of the Democratic party platform o^f 
1912, which declared that "the control by any one 
corporation of so large a proportion of industry as 
to make it a menace to competitive conditions" is 
"indefensible and intolerable," and demanded "the 
enactment of such additional legislation as may be 
necessary to make it impossible for a private mon- 
opoly to exist in the United States." 

The lessons of the Great War, however, were in no 
respect more striking than in their emphasis upon the 
need of the pooling of interests, and the incapacity of 
a divided industrial regime. Temporarily, men 
worked together under a unified governmental plan, 
and achieved results in production and distribution 
which amazed us all. Almost as much energy was 
spent in organizing industry and commerce as in 
moving armies and fighting the enemy. A machinery 
of co-operation was built up, an economic integration, 
which, in spite of the drawing away of several million 
young men from industry, speeded up production to 
a point far above pre-war possibilities. We have 
since drifted back into much of the old disorder of 
effort and undisciplined confusion. But the lessons 
of the War have graved themselves deeply upon many 
minds. 

It is true, of course, that the government control 
exercised over firms, small and great, and tolerated 
in the emergency, became irksome when the emer- 
gency had passed. It is also true that much blunder- 



236 EFFICIENCY 

ing and graft appeared in this hasty and unprece- 
dented organization, of the nation's effort. But it 
would seem as if our efforts ought to be directed 
rather toward improving the machinery of organiza- 
tion, and eliminating the blunders and the opportuni- 
ties for graft, rather than in discarding the ideal of 
co-ordination and unity. As our population grows, 
and our natural resources yield less exuberantly, the 
problem of efficiency in production and distribution 
will become more and more acute ; and it would seem 
wise for us to be working in the direction of that 
unification of effort to which we must eventually 
come. 

As a matter of fact, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act 
never accomplished its purpose. The process of 
amalgamation has gone pretty steadily on, and recent 
judicial interpretations have followed the principle 
that only those combinations which actually work 
to the injury of the public are to be condemned, not 
the process of combination itself. 

We should be proud of this genius for organization ; 
it is one of our most distinctive American traits, and 
ought to be one of our proudest ideals. It requires 
great intellectual power, executive ability, imagina- 
tion, and faith, for its completest realization. But 
there must be more than that. There must go hand 
in hand with this organization of production and 
distribution such a measure of democratic participa- 
tion in control by the workers as shall ensure them 
a self-respecting life and their just share of the results 
of the new efficiency. And there must be an increased 
oversight of these great private organizations by the 
State, to ensure the public against exploitation. 
Delicate problems these. But as industry is the back- 
bone of a nation's life, so these problems are the fun- 



BIG BUSINESS 237 

damental problems, whose solution is imperative if 
its future is to be secure. 

How to preserve and increase that individual 
initiative and energy in which we so firmly believe, 
how to increase the dignity and power of individual 
men, and yet harmonize their efforts into one great 
synthetic purpose, — that is the task set for our young 
business men to think out. We shall be proud indeed 
if America leads the way in solving this great 
problem. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control. 

F. C. McVey, Modern Industrialism. 

Florence Kelley, Modern Industry. 

J. W. Jenks, The Trust Problem. 

E. von Halle, Trusts and Industrial Combinations. 

S. C. T. Dodd, Combinations, their Use and Abuse. 

R. T. Ely, Monopolies and Trusts. 

E. A. Ross, Sin and Society. 

H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics, Chap. XXII. 

Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Chap. XXVI, and pp. 

379-381. 
L. D. Brandeis, Other People's Money. 
P. E. Haworth, America in Ferment, Chap. YIII. 
Ida Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Company. 
A. K. Fiske, Honest Business. 
Bruce Wyman, Control of the Market. 
C. P. Steinmetz, America and the New Epoch. 
A. D. Noyes, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. Ill, p. 653. 



CHAPTER XXI 

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 

The combination and co-operation of business men 
have made possible the great achievements of Ameri- 
can business — greater production, improved product, 
larger profits, lov^er prices. But these economic 
gains have not, for the most part, resulted in any 
great improvement in the status of the employees, 
except as the latter have been able, in their turn, to 
bring pressure to bear through organizations of their 
own. The labor-unions thus necessitated have also 
many other achievements to their credit. They have 
helped to assimilate and Americanize heterogeneous 
groups of immigrants, have promoted friendliness and 
mutual help among the laboring classes, and in many 
ways served their welfare. 

Thus the unions are now an accepted part of our 
American life. Theodore Roosevelt, speaking at 
Columbus, September 10, 1910, said, ^^If I were a wage 
worker, I should certainly join a union. ... In our 
modern industrial system the union is just as neces- 
sary as the corporation, and in the modern field of 
industrialism, it is often an absolute necessity that 
there should be collective bargaining by the employees 
with the employers; and such collective bargaining 
is but one of the many benefits conferred by wisely 
and honestly organized unions that act properly.'^ 

To offset this good record, it must be admitted that 
the unions have often retarded industrial progress 
and even the efficient working of existing machineiy. 
They have at times sought to restrict the number of 

238 



COLLECTIVE BAHGAINING 239 

apprentices in a trade, opposed trade schools, opposed 
scientific management, in order to make more work, 
insisted on the retention of incompetent employees, 
and upon a uniform wage to all, without regard to 
efficiency. They have sometimes been in the grip of 
grafting leaders, who have sought to use their power 
for their personal enrichment. They have some- 
times broken their agreements with employers, and 
declared strikes in violation of contract. In short, 
like all other forms of human organization, they come 
under the control, from time to time, of all sorts of 
leaders, wise and unwise, scrupulous and selfish, and 
have a mixed record of good and evil — whether better 
or worse than that of business firms, trusts, and 
financial rings, or than that of political parties, it 
would be difficult to say. 

It is fair to say, however, that some or all of the 
above-mentioned tactics have been adopted by unions 
because, in their judgment, they were necessary 
means for the attainment of their end — the bettering 
of the status of labor. And however shortsighted 
their methods at times have been, it is beyond dispute 
that they have been the greatest force that has made 
for higher wages, shorter hours, and better working 
conditions. Even the attainment of decently humane 
conditions for working women and children has been 
mostly the work of the unions, in the face of stren- 
uous opposition from the employers. It is no wonder 
that organized labor thinks of itself ^^not as a selfish 
group which is extorting all it can from the com- 
munity, but as a group which, under the conditions 
of a modern industrial society, is now occupying the 
firing line in the battle for human liberation.'' 

The labor-unions are able to ameliorate the lot of 
the workers in two ways, by influencing legislation, 



240 EFEICIENCY 

and by direct bargaining with the employers. The 
latter has been by far the more efficacious method 
hitherto. There has been little agreement among 
labor-leaders upon political measures, and no con- 
certed action at the polls. But economic pressure 
brought to bear upon the owners of industry through 
the power of the workers to cease working has had 
marked effects. 

Whether we shall approve of the exercise of this 
power depends upon our judgment as to the desir- 
ability of the ends sought. Undoubtedly in many 
cases organized labor has demanded more than could 
reasonably be granted under existing conditions. 
But in general, the status of the workers has been 
unnecessarily low, and the gains won through col- 
lective action desirable, for the community as a whole, 
as well as for the workers. Hence nearly all disin- 
terested students of the industrial situation have 
approved the principle of collective bargaining. 
Public Commissions on Industrial Relations, Church 
Conferences, Presidents of the United States — practi- 
cally everyone except certain representatives of the 
employing class declare the method necessary ; so that 
it is now firmly established as a principle of Ameri- 
canism. Recently the Federal Council of the 
Churches declared that "the safety and development 
of the workers, the best interest of the employers, 
the security and progress of the community all 
demand if 

The success of collective bargaining depends, obvi- 
ously, upon the completeness with which the workers 
are organized. If only a part of those in a given 
industrial concern belong to the unions, and the rest 
refuse to obey their leadership, the employer can defy 
their demands. Hence the earnest efforts to unionize 



COLLEDTIYE bargaining 241 

laborers, and the bitterness of the resentment felt by 
the members of the unions toward the ^^scabs" — 
workers who continue to work when the union decides 
to strike, or who take the places of strikers. If it is 
true that the betterment of the lot of the workers is 
made, for the most part, only by the collective effort 
and sacrifice of the workers united in their unions, 
then the worker who refuses to join in this effort and 
sacrifice, who continues to accept his pay when his 
comrades are wageless, and helps to make their effort 
and sacrifice fruitless, is naturally regarded as a 
traitor to the common cause and deserving of the 
utmost contempt. 

The organization of laborers along the lines of 
their separate crafts has stood in the way of their 
collective action. Hence the movement toward indus- 
trial unions whose membership shall be coextensive 
with the workers in an entire industry. And hence 
the demand for the Closed Shop, that is, a shop in 
which only union members are allowed to work. If 
such a requirement were to become universal, all 
the workers would join the unions, and no one would 
be excluded from positions. But of course, this is 
precisely what the autocratically-minded employers 
do not wish. They follow the ancient maxim. Divide 
et impera. In particular, the owners of some of the 
greatest corporations have fought the unionization of 
their employees, under the slogan. The Open Shop. 

The Open Shop idea appeals to our American spirit 
of indi\ddualism ; it insists upon the right of each 
laborer to decide for himself whether or not he will 
join the union. But if the unions are right in saying, 
United we stand, divided we fall, they must blame 
this individualistic attitude as vigorously as a nation 
at war condemns the citizens who disrupt its unity. 



242 EFFICIENCY 

The employer, or the owner of industrial securities, 
is not disinterested ; the success of a labor-movement 
may lessen his profits or his dividends. And so his 
conscientious fervor for the open shop ideal is not 
quite convincing. And when we find directors of 
corporations quietly discharging men who have 
joined the unions, and even employing, as many do, 
spies among the workers to spot those who show 
signs of favoring union ideas, we realize that their 
avowed advocacy of the Open Shop often masks an 
actual determination to keep the employees unor- 
ganized and so helpless. 

That acute critic of American institutions, Mr. 
Dooley, saw clearly the laborers' side of the Open 
Shop controversy. 

"What's all this that's in the papers about the open 
shop?" asked Mr. Hennessey. 

"Why, don't you know?" said Mr. Dooley. "Really 
I'm surprised at yer ignorance, Hinnissey. What is 
th' open shop? Sure, 'tis where they kape the doors 
open to accommodate th' constant stream av' min 
comin' in t' take jobs cheaper than th' min what has 
th' jobs. 'Tis like this, Hinnissey : Suppose wan av 
these freeborn citizens is workin' in an open shop 
f'r th' princely wages av wan large iron dollar a day 
av tin hour. Along comes anither son-av-gun and he 
sez to th' boss 'Oi think Oi could handle th' job nicely 
f'r ninety cints.' ^Sure,' sez th' boss, and th' wan 
dollar man gets out into th' crool woruld t' exercise 
his inalienable roights as a freeborn American citizen 
an' scab on some other poor devil. An' so it goes on, 
Hinnissey. An' who gits th' benefit? Thrue, it saves 
th' boss money, but he don't care no more f'r money 
thin he does f'r his right eye. 



COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 243 

"It's all principle wid him. He hates t' see men 
robbed av their indipendence. They must have their 
indipendence, regardless av anything else." 

"But," said Mr. Hennessey, "these open shop min 
ye menshun say they are f'r unions iv properly con- 
ducted." 

"Shure," said Mr. Dooley, "iv properly conducted. 
An' there we are : An' how would they have thim con- 
ducted? No strikes, no rules, no contracts, no scales, 
hardly iny wages an' dam few mimbers." 

If this is often the actual psychology of the em- 
ployer, it must be admitted that the motives and 
ideals of the unions are often equally open to criti- 
cism. But since there is an inevitable conflict of 
interest between profit-seeking employers and em- 
ployees seeking better working and living conditions, 
it seems necessary to forward by whatever means are 
consonant with our American ideal of Liberty, the 
organization of employees, in order that the two 
parties may be fairly equal in the contest. At any 
rate, the fight against unionization usually results 
in the spread of restlessness and radicalism ; workers 
who find themselves unable to help themselves by fair 
means will fall back upon foul means. If labor is 
opposed too generally in its efforts toward organiza- 
tion, it is likely to become destructively pugnacious 
and tend more and more to sabotage, slacking on the 
job, and other forms of "direct action." There can 
be little doubt that the Report of the United States 
Commission on Industrial Relations, in 1915, was 
right in declaring that "the most effectual course that 
can be pursued to bring about general contentment 
among our people ... is the promotion of labor 
organization.'^ 



244 EFFICIENCY 

What then? the reader may say. The chief weapon 
by which the unions can win for labor its due share 
of the national prosperity is through the strike. And 
can we approve the strike? Every one suffers during, 
a strike — the employers and stockholders, the wage- 
earners and their families, and the general public. 
The total economic loss to the community from strikes 
is very great; and the cost of living is appreciably 
raised thereby for all of us. A large proportion of 
the strikes are unsuccessful, sheer waste for every- 
one. Even when the workers are successful, their 
gains in wages are often not enough to compensate 
them for the losses they have suffered. And always a 
strike engenders bitterness, class-division, and angry 
passions. In general, strikers in America have exer- 
cised great self-control, and have been guilty of rela- 
tively little violence — such violence as has occurred 
being usually the result of unfair and provocative 
conduct on the part of the employers. But certainly 
the strike is at best a hateful thing, to be tolerated 
only if it is the only means available for the attain- 
ment of justice for the workers. 

The laboring classes believe, almost universally, 
that it is a necessary and therefore a legitimate 
weapon — in the last resort, if employers are obdurate 
to considerations of justice and humanity, the only 
available method of obtaining their rights. It is, 
therefore, useless to dwell upon the evils of the strike 
— which every one admits. If the workers believe 
that they have a serious grievance, and can get it 
remedied in no other way, they will strike, and noth- 
ing but the use of the power of military mobilization 
can make them work. This is a Yevj dangerous power 
to use, and would probably not be tolerated in this 
country unless public sympathies were overwhelm- 



COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 245 

ingly against the strikers. We must face the fact, 
then, that strikes will occur from time to time, until 
the workers feel that they have their fair share of the 
profits — and perhaps of the control — of industry, and 
are satisfied with the conditions and hours of their 
work. Or until some other method proves equally 
efficacious for the attainment of these ends. 

To say "equally efficacious" is not to say very- 
much ! Strikes, for all their cost, have not actually, 
as yet, accomplished a great deal. It is a question 
whether the energy spent in strikes would not have 
accomplished far more if it had been put into getting 
legislation enacted. The wage-earning classes form 
the largest block of the population; if they could 
agree upon the laws they want, they could undoubt- 
edly get them upon the statute-books. Why should 
not political action, in a democracy, be substituted 
for economic action? 

Undoubtedly it should. The era of strikes must be 
conceived by every hopeful American as a transient 
era. The strike is a form of coercion, whereas the 
principle of democracy is persuasion, and the domi- 
nance of enlightened public opinion. The strike is a 
method by which one group seeks to win its end with- 
out having to convince the majority that it is in the 
right. Might does not make right ; and the victory in 
a strike goes to the stronger side;, not necessarily, and 
not, perhaps, in a majority of cases, to the side that 
is in the right. The strike is a form of private war- 
fare, in which the public has to suffer from the ina- 
bility of the two groups at war tO' agree. 

When we contemplate the terrible possibilities of 
a "general strike," we see clearly that another method 
of settling industrial disputes must be devised. A 
strike of the railroad workers throughout the country 



546 EFFICIENCY 

would quickly become a calamity of yast proportions 
— babies would die for lack of milk and ice, the big 
cities would be in serious straits for food and coal, 
the whole actiyity of the country would be paralyzed. 
A general strike of coal miners in winter would 
quickly result in the stoppage of trains, and actual 
freezing to death in the cities. If the workers in the 
key industries of our countiw eyer unite in a cause 
which they feel to be just, and steel themselyes to 
suffering as ruthlessly as the lighting nations did in 
the Great War, the disaster to the nation might be 
eyen greater than that of war. 

It is no wonder that a great deal of agitation has 
been carried on for compulsory arbitration of labor 
disputes. If justice can be secured by the yerdict of 
an impartial tribunal or court, all the suffering and 
bitterness and economic loss caused by strikes can 
be sayed. Labor can be sure of getting its due eyen 
when it is not strong enough to make a successful 
strike. Other disputes are settled by legal means, 
why not these? Surely right, not might, should haye 
the deciding yoice. 

As a matter of fact, howeyer, it is impracticable at 
present to compel arbitration in these matters. The 
labor-unions are almost all \iolently opposed to it; 
and eyen in Xew Zealand and Australia, where the 
wage-earners once welcomed it, they haye lost their 
faith in it. It has not actually resulted in improring 
their status; and while once it was thought that in 
these lands the age of strikes was oyer, they haye 
again become common. So that in 1919 the Federated 
Business Men's Organization of Australia declared, 
"It is obyious after an experience of twenty years 
that our industrial laws haye lamentably failed to 
secure industrial peace.'' 



COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 247 

If compulsoi^ arbitration is not snccessful in se- 
curing justice, it actually works out in favor of the 
employers. Success in a strike demands sudden ac- 
tion. During an enforced delay, emplo^xrs can be 
gathering together strike-breakers and preparing to 
get on without their former workers. 

At any rate, to compel a body of wage-earners to 
accept arbitration by a body which they distrust is 
not feasible. Fines cannot be collected from thou- 
sands of poor people, men cannot be imprisoned by 
the thousand, nor can they be made to work, save 
under military rule. The attempt to force a verdict, 
in an important case, upon laborers Avho believed it 
to be radically unjust would be to in\ite revolution. 

The point is that the basic matters in dispute be- 
tween labor and capital — the proper wages, hours, 
working conditions, and division of control — are non- 
justiciable. There are no generally approved prin- 
ciples from which to decide a particular case. Labor 
wants not a static condition, perpetuation of the 
status quo, but progress toward better conditions. 
The so-called impartial judge, however, usually 
thinks in terms of the existing distribution of profits 
and power; his verdicts usually tend to standardize 
conditions at their present unsatisfactory level. 
Judges and arbitrators seldom have the laborer's 
point of view ; they are apt to be thinking of business 
prosperity, reasonable di\ddends, the public conven- 
ience, rather than of the welfare of the workers. 
The public is instinctively inclined to resent the extra 
cost of commodities necessitated by, or at any rate 
usually resulting from, an improvement in the status 
of the wage-earners, and usually thinks of them as 
disturbers of the peace. Thus the workers feel that 
the scales are weighted against them, and that arbi- 



24^ , EFFICIENCY 

tration, instead of getting for them their just de- 
mands, actually serves as a means of keeping them 
slaves in an unjust social order. 

Certainly peace at any price is not the ideal. The 
industrial pacifists must realize that a peace resting 
upon an unjust distribution of profits and power, of 
inhumane working conditions, cannot be a lasting 
peace. The various plans for conferences and com- 
mon decisions within an industry — Shop Committees, 
Industrial Councils, and the like, seem promising. 
An opportunity to present their case to one another, 
to come to a mutual understanding, to participate in 
policies that make for the common advantage, can 
obviate much of the friction between employers and 
wage-earners. Investigation and mediation by out- 
side tribunals may often be useful. But in the pres- 
ent condition of industry, obviously a transition 
situation, we must hesitate to take from the wage- 
earners the one weapon that they feel they can depend 
upon to remedy intolerable conditions. Wretched as 
the strike-weapon is, we have not yet worked out an 
industrial order in which it is safe to make it illegal. 

The hope for the future lies in education — the edu- 
cation of the workers to understand their own needs 
and duties and to use the ballot as the means of reme- 
dying their wrongs; the education of the employing 
class, that they may understand the laborers' point 
of view and put into operation industrial methods 
that will bring about a diffused prosperity and a self- 
respecting life for their employees; the education of 
the general public, that it may understand the rights 
and wrongs of the intricate industrial problem and 
put its weight on the side of humanity and justice. 
Strikes, "direct action,'' economic pressure — these are 
war-methods; they must in time give way to the 



COLLlECTiyE BAKGAINING 249 

methods of open discussion and decision by the 
majority vote. What stands in the way of this is — - 
ignorance, and prejudice, the child of ignorance. A 
better and longer school-education, a more wide- 
awake and socially useful Church, a non-partisan, or 
omni-partisan, press, these are to be the means of 
our salvation. In the meantime we must be content 
to let labor meet the power of organized business with 
its own organized power, and hope that through their 
bargaining and bickering some genuine progress may 
be made. 

It is also to be hoped that the labor-unions will 
more and more use their organized power not merely 
to wrest higher wages and humaner working con- 
ditions from their employers, but to improve the 
efficiency of their members and to co-operate with 
capital in bettering the technique of production. 
They are at present mainly, and necessarily, fighting- 
organizations. The gradual satisfaction of their 
aspirations for labor should transform them ulti- 
mately into constructive agencies of great value for 
the future of American industry. 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

J. R. Commons, Trade-Unionism and Labor Prohlems. 

F. T. Carlton, History and Prohlems of Organized Labor; 

Organized Labor in American History. 
John Mitchell, Organized Labor. • 

Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace, Chap. V. 
C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, Chap. IX. 
H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics, Chap. XXI. 
J. G. Brooks, Labours Challenge to the Social Order. 

G. G. Groat, Introduction to the Study of Organized Labor. 

T. S. Adams and H. L. Sumner, Labor Problems, Chapters VI, 

VII. 
W. H. Hamilton, Current Economic Problems, p. 577, ff. 
C. N. Fay, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 758. 
J. P. Frey, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 28, p. 485. 



CHAPTER XXII 

MORAIiE 

Disputes and divergences of viewpoint there will 
always be in industry, as in every other field of co- 
operative action. But when these disputes merge 
into a continuous and deep-seated conflict between 
labor and capital, we have a state of things obviously 
destructive of efficiency. The maintenance of Ameri- 
can industry and commerce upon a high level of effi- 
ciency is in no small degree dependent upon corps 
d/esprity team-play, a genuine spirit of co-operation. 
And that is dependent upon the mental attitude of 
the workers — what we have in recent years learned 
to call morale. 

Many observers declare that the morale of Ameri- 
can wage-earners has been lowered in recent years. 
The antagonism between their ideals and the policies 
of their employers has become more conscious. 
Workers refuse to exert themselves greatly, they 
repeat the phrases, "take your time," "go easy,'' "no 
hurry" ; they take vacations from their jobs when they 
feel like it, they are less and less docile and depend- 
able. One writer declares that "this growing reluc- 
tance of wage-earners to give more than they get is 
the Achilles-heel of our modern industrial system." 
Another writer puts the situation thus: "Let us re- 
member that such habits of industry as we can still 
count on were established under an earlier order, 
when the relation between reward and effort appeared 

250 



MOEALE 251 

closer, in the skilled trades, and when the unskilled 
workman, illiterate and oppressed, was more amen- 
able to discipline. We are trading on an inherited 
capital of industrious habits. This is the road to 
bankruptcy, unless we can learn to create similar 
habits that may serve for the future.'' 

Certainly we can never again expect, and should 
never want, to see laborers meek and spiritless, with 
overseers cracking the whip over them, like so many 
"dumb, driven cattle." That is not a thinkable 
American solution for the problem. The development 
of morale among the workers must come through the 
awaking of their interest in their work, through the 
tapping of new sources of creative energy, and the 
development of a voluntary code of honor, and tra- 
dition of loyal service, like that which exists in an 
army that believes in its cause and in its leaders. 
The workman who is industrious and faithful must 
command the admiration of his fellows instead of 
their suspicion. The slacker and floater must come tO' 
be regarded with contempt. In short, morale must 
be created by the active attitude of the mass of wage- 
earners themselves, and cannot be imposed upon them 
from without. 

To some extent, this tendency to work slowly and 
do as little as possible for his wages, this lack of 
interest in the success of the business for which he 
is working, is due to the natural laziness and selfish- 
ness to which man is prone; in so far it can only be 
overcome by the diffusion of higher moral or reli- 
gious standards. But human motives and attitudes 
are largely formed by environment; and the wide- 
spread lack of morale among workers is to a large 
extent the result of external causes that can be re- 
moved. The situation cannot be cured by preaching 



252 EFFICIENCY 

the necessity of production, or by scolding at labor. 
We must put ourselves in the place of the workers 
and consider what can be done to increase their 
loyalty and enthusiasm for their work. 

One important means to this end, alluded to in an 
earlier chapter, is the extension of vocational educa- 
tion. Interest arises through an intelligent compre- 
hension of the task one is performing, and a realiza- 
tion of its relation to the related tasks which one's 
fellows are performing. The skilled worker is far 
more apt to put his heart into his work than the 
untrained laborer. And the analyses of industrial 
processes made in recent years by physiologists and 
technicians reveal an enormous waste of human labor 
that could be saved by teaching the humblest manual 
workers the best way to perform their tasks. For 
the positions requiring more thought and decision, 
the necessity of trained intelligence is even more 
obvious. But as yet a very small per cent of 
American wage-earners receive any sort of scientific 
training for their work. 

This is strikingly the situation in agriculture. The 
farmers, except for the "hired men," are not "wage- 
earners.'' But they are to an increasing extent 
dependent upon the big industrial and commercial 
concerns — the packing houses, the milk distributors, 
the middlemen, and brokers; and those who do not 
own their farms have to pay increasingly high rents. 
Many of them have felt in recent years that the dice 
were weighted against them, that the prices v/hich 
they are forced to pay for seed and feed and fertilizers 
and equipment, coupled wdth the price at which they 
were obliged to sell their produce, left them too little 
opportunity for an honest living. The result has 
been, in some quarters, a lowering of morale among 



MORALE 253 

farmers, and a disinclination of our young people to 
take up the farm-life. And yet the trained farmers 
have been making, in general, good profits. Govern- 
ment bulletins, experimental stations, agricultural 
colleges, and agricultural courses in the public 
schools, are doing a good deal toward bringing in the 
age of scientific farming. But we have, as a nation, 
a discouragingly long way yet to go. 

Another extremely important means toward the 
development of morale is vocational guidance. Our 
present methods of finding the right person for every 
job and the right job for every person are, in general, 
quite rudimentary. A son drifts into the business of 
his father. An employer picks a man from a number 
of applicants, on the basis of his momentary impres- 
sion, or because he is vaguely recommended by some- 
one. The result is a trial and error method, with 
square pegs constantly trying to fit themselves into 
round holes. A large proportion of our population 
never find the work for which, by temperament and 
ability, they are actually best fitted. No one can 
estimate how much enthusiasm, how much ability, 
how much real genius, is wasted because never 
applied to its proper field. The universal use in the 
public schools of careful psychological tests, and the 
steering of boys and girls into the lines of study, and 
later into the vocations, for which nature has adapted 
them, will mean not only a far more general interest 
and happiness in work, but an incalculable increase 
in its productivity, both in quantity and quality. 

In all sorts of ways up-to-date employers are seek- 
ing to cultivate good-will among their workers, and 
to utilize their instinct of workmanship. They are 
encouraging their employees to get acquainted with 
one another, and to have social good times. They are 



254 EFFICIENCY 

providing them with reading-rooms, rest-rooms, ball- 
fields, gymnasiums. They are giving them a chance 
to learn about the various departments of the busi- 
ness and so to feel a pride in it. They are encourag- 
ing them to hand in "suggestions." They are employ- 
ing "labor managers," to adjust their minor griev- 
ances and to manifest their employers' interest in 
their comfort. 

But all this fails to go to the root of the matter. 
The fundamental reason why the wage-earner is so 
often listless and indifferent to the interests of his 
employer is precisely because they are his employer's 
interests, and not his. If our society expects to get 
loyalty from the wage-earner, it must treat him not 
as a mere "hand," a seller of labor, but as an integral 
part of the industrial structure. The fact is that at 
present most American business is run solely in the 
interests of owners' profits, with only that degree of 
regard which is expedient, for the interest of either 
the public or the workers. "Business prosperity" — 
which means large profits to the owners^ — ^is the scale 
by which even kindness to employees is measured. 
The workers, gradually becoming more intelligent 
and observant, are realizing this more and more 
keenly, and becoming more resentful and class- 
conscious. 

Take the matter of scarcity of employment. What 
enthusiasm for his work can a wage-earner have when 
he knows that he may be discharged at any time at 
the will of his employer, no matter how faithful or 
even how efficient his work? A wave of business 
depression occurs ; or the employers in a given indus- 
try simply decide to curtail production in order to 
raise the price of their product. Men are turned off 
by the score or by the hundred. It is not easy for 



MOEALE 255 

them to get other employment. Their families suffer 
from want. Is it any wonder that they have a low 
morale? In the words of a recent student of the 
situation, ^'If we can devise nothing better than the 
regulation of industrial relations by commercial 
principles alone, if we cannot rid ourselves of the 
preconception that labor is a commodity, to be taken 
from the market when needed and thrown back 
when not needed, we may as well prepare ourselves 
for a period of progressive disintegration of labor 
efficiency.'' 

As matters stand, the zealous and faithful worker 
is naturally regarded by his fellows as on the em- 
ployer's side. He gets through with work quickly 
which might be made to last longer, and thus in- 
creases the risk of future unemployment. Further- 
more, he sets a pace which will be demanded of his 
fellows, compelling them also to use up too soon the 
available work. This fear of losing their jobs haunts 
many wage-earners day and night; it is the cause of 
much of their unrest, and of much of their deliberate 
slacking. The development of morale requires 
security of employment for the faithful worker. 
The problem is a difficult one to solve. But some 
solution of it better than the present is demanded, 
not only from humane considerations, but for the 
building up of an efficient industrial system. 

Moreover, underpaid workers can hardly be ex- 
pected to f^l a zest for strenuous production when 
they see the profits of their energy going into the 
pockets of their already rich employers. The ^^scien- 
tific management" of efficiency-engineers is silently 
or openly opposed by laborers because they find the 
speeding up process inuring chiefly, if not wholly, to 
the benefit of the stockholders. Conversely, firms 



256 EFFICIENCY 

that have increased the wages of their employees have 
sometimes found their profits greater than ever, 
through the reduction in labor turnover and the in- 
creased good-will and energy of their workers. What 
constitutes a '^fair wage" is, of course, always a moot 
question. But it can be laid down as an axiom that 
such a distribution of the national income as we saw 
in an earlier chapter to prevail at present will not 
call out anywhere near the maximum of energy from 
the nation's workers. 

Even, however, if wages are generous, it is doubt- 
ful if labor will give of its best in the years ahead of 
us without a greater stake in the enterprises upon 
which it is engaged. We urge the ^'free play of 
initiative" as essential to efficient business. But we 
give opportunity for such exercise of initiative to a 
comparative few, in our industrial system. Much 
more thought and enthusiasm is devoted to work when 
the workers have a share in the management. To 
quote a recent acute observer, ^'The wage incentive 
and other stimuli, such as profit-sharing, do not make 
the workers feel fundamentally interested in their 
tasks. If the full productive capacity which is at 
this time both consciously and unconsciously with- 
held from society is ever to be released, labor must 
participate in the conduct of industry." 

This development of democracy in industry should 
only take place as the workers are educated to under- 
stand both their own individual tasks and the wider 
economic principles that underlie the efficient con- 
duct of business. It must be introduced with caution, 
step by step, lest a mass of ignorant laborers bring 
disaster upon a business through their advocacy of 
mistaken policies. But it is a goal to work toward. 
The older conception, that an industry belongs ex- 



MORALE 257 

clusively to those who furnish the capital, and may 
be run precisely as they please, with the workers 
merely a part of the necessary machinery, must give 
way to the conception that the workers have an in- 
herent right to responsibilities and power. Undoubt- 
edly, this participation by the wage-earners in the 
management of our industries, if coupled with proper 
education and vocational guidance, and sponsored by 
the labor-unions, could greatly accelerate the develop- 
ment of a scientific technique and result in a great 
increase in output. 

The fact is that the autocratic conduct of industry, 
like the autocratic control of nations, may be benevo- 
lent and efficient, but cannot be trusted to be so. We 
have many instances of paternalistic benevolence — 
welfare work, improvement of working conditions, 
voluntaiy profit-sharing or distributing of bonuses^ — 
that hearten the observer of American business. But 
on the other hand, we have conspicuous instances 
such as the steel industry, where, as a distinguished 
economist has recently put it, ^^the mass of workers 
are driven as large numbers of laborers, whether slave 
or free, have scarcely before in human history been 
driven.'' 

It is with such instances in mind that President 
Wilson, in his First Inaugural, said, ^'We have been 
proud of our industrial achievements, but we have 
not stopped thoughtfully enough to count the human 
cost, the cost of lives snuffed out, of energies over- 
taxed and broken, the fearful physical and spiritual 
cost to the men and women and children upon whom 
the dead weight and burden of it all has fallen piti- 
lessly the years through." 

Real efficiency is something bigger than financial 
efficiency; the ability to pay big dividends, or even 



258 EFFICIENCY 

to produce at low cost, is only part of the story. Real 
efficiency is the ratio between the human effort and 
sacrifice given, and the results in production. To 
make cheaper goods at the cost of human happiness 
is not real efficiency. Xor, in the long run, can this 
kind of financial efficiency last; inhumane methods 
are bound to generate dissatisfaction and slackness, 
if not actual sabotage. But unhappily, human nature 
is shortsighted ; and there is likely to be a perpetual 
tendency on the part of employers to slight the 
claims of such abstract ideals as Liberty, Equality, 
and Democracy, in their interest in immediate finan- 
cial returns. For this evil there seems to be no per- 
manent remedy save some form of democratic con- 
trol over the power of capital. 

After all, ''the good will of labor is the most valu- 
able asset in business." It is foolish to expect the 
utmost from workers when their attitude is one of 
docile, unthinking obedience, still more foolish when 
their attitude has become that of resentment and 
bitterness. In the chaos of plans and suggestions 
and experiments, we must expect a long period of 
clashing ideas, with much friction and much loss to 
production. But in all our musings on the tangled 
situation, we must never forget that the workers of 
the country must be fairly treated, fixated as self- 
respecting citizens; more than that, they must, if 
possible, be led to feel that they are fairly treated. 
For only so can we have a high morale in business; 
and without a high morale we can have neither happi- 
ness nor efficiency. 

SUGGESTED READING S 

H. Schneider, Education for Industrial Worl-ers. 
J. S. Taylor, Handbook of Vocational Ediixatiofu 
H. S. Person, Industrial Edu<;atioTU 



:m:orale 259 

Meyer Blooinfield. The Tocational Guidance of Youth. 
J. E. Commons. Indu^fn'al GoodwiU. 

E. F, Hoxie, Sclen-tific Man.age77ient and Labor. 
Helen Marot, The Creative Impulse in Industry. 
Ordway Tead, Instin-cts iJi Industry. 

H. F. Ward, The Xeic Socml Order,, Chap. IV. 

F. W. Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management. 
H. X, GauTt, Organizing for Work. 

F. A. Cleveland, Organized Democracy. Chap. XXXV. 

E. M. Friedman, etc., American Problems of Beconstru-ctionj 

Chap. VII. 
W. C. Eeddeld, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. -111. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

CONSERVATION 

Proud as we Americans are apt to be of our efficiency 
in business, it is probably safe to say that, by con- 
trast with an ideal mechanism of production and 
distribution, our existing processes are not more than 
ten per cent efficient. Few of our industries are 
much more than at the beginning of the development 
of their technique. The discoveries and inventions 
of modern science, the education of human skill, the 
organization of human effort, open endless vistas of 
progress before us. Eventually, when every able- 
bodied citizen works, a far shorter working day 
should suffice for a satisfaction of human needs far 
above the present average standard of life. Even 
now, if we had exercised a wise prudence in the de- 
veloping of our national estate, we should be far 
richer than we are. 

The inertia of the human mind — even of the 
American mind — is great. Trade journals and asso- 
ciations are doing a good deal to advertise the more 
efficient methods; and there is a visible improvement 
from year to year. But the opposition to a scientific 
organization of the national industry and commerce, 
and to the wise conservation of our resources, is more 
than a stupid conservatism ; it comes largely from the 
deliberate opposition of individuals and groups that 
profit by the general loss. The fact is that business 
is run too exclusively to benefit the pocket-books of 

260 



CONSERVATION 261 

the owners, and too little as a public service. Unhap- 
pily, the two ends often conflict. 

It is doubtful if America has any more important 
duty than to conserve with a reasonable prudence the 
natural resources of the continent. Yet we have 
actually been wasting these resources with criminal 
prodigality. There has been no intelligent, compre- 
hensive plan for this utilization. The nation's heri- 
tage has been allowed, for the most part, to fall into 
the hands of private owners; and these owners have 
been chiefly concerned with making immediate profits 
for themselves rather than with conserving this in- 
heritance for future generations. 

Take, for examjDle, the destruction of our forests. 
There were over 800,000,000 acres of forests in this 
country when the white men came. Five-sixths of 
this area has now been cut over, culled, or burned. 
We are now taking twenty-six billion cubic feet of 
wood out of our forests annually, and growing only 
six billion cubic feet to replace what we take. The 
depletion of the lumber supply has already seriously 
affected the whole population. Hundreds of thou- 
sands of needed homes remain unbuilt because of the 
high price of lumber. Many industries have been 
seriously crippled. A report of the United States 
Forest Service, in August, 1920, contains the follow- 
ing statements: "The timber of the country as a 
whole is being used and destroyed four times as fast 
as new timber is growing; and the saw timber, the 
most valuable and most needed part of the stand, 
is being cut five and one-half times as fast as it is 
produced. More than 80,000,000 acres of land that 
should be growing timber is unproductive waste, 
much more is only partially productive, and fires are 
steadily causing further deterioration." 



262 EFFICIENCY 

The Forest Service deserves the highest praise for 
what it has done. But the policy of forest-reserva- 
tion came too late to save the wanton despoiling of 
the greater part of our timber-supply. Methods of 
cutting have been exceedingly wasteful, reforestation 
has been neglected, and forest fires have been allowed 
to complete the destruction. Altogether, about ten 
million acres of forest are devastated annually by 
fires — a yearly loss of between one and two hundred 
million dollars' worth of the national wealth. About 
forty billion feet, board measure, of merchantable 
lumber are cut annually, and another seventy billion 
are wasted in the forest and at the mill in getting it ! 
In a comparatively few years more, at this rate, our 
reserves will be nearly exhausted. 

Moreover, an expert has recently estimated that 
"in the yellow pine belt the values in rosin, turpen- 
tine, ethyl alcohol, pine oil, tar, charcoal, and paper- 
stock lost in the waste are three or four times the 
value of the lumber produced. Enough yellow-pine 
pulp-wood is consumed in burners, or left to rot, to 
make double the total tonnage of paper produced in 
the United States.'' 

This is what our reckless individualism has brought 
us to! In Europe, forest-cutting is carefully regu- 
lated by the various nations, so that there may be as 
little waste as possible, and no depletion of the sup- 
ply. Fortunately, it is never too late to plant forests. 
There are hundreds of millions of acres of land in our 
country, not suitable for other purposes, upon which 
enough timber can be grown to meet our needs. What 
is wanted is a comprehensive national policy, strict 
regulation of timber-cutting, and a greatly increased 
organization for fire-patrol. 

Forests can be replaced, in time. But the wasteful 



CONSERVATION 263 

destruction of oil and coal is irremediable. The 
owners of oil-wells, and the distributors of oil, have 
made their thousands of millions of dollars; but at 
a cost to posterity of which we should be deeply 
ashamed. In the words of an American business man 
who has studied the situation: "The wastes in our 
petroleum industry have been shocking and stupen- 
dous. Fields are abandoned with from thirty to 
ninety per cent of the oil still underground; vast 
areas have been ruined by admitting water into the 
oil sands ; fires take heavy toll. In all, not more than 
twenty-five per cent of the oil underground reaches 
the pipe-line, and less than half of that is utilized to 
the best advantage.'' 

The United States Geological Survey has recently 
estimated that our natural oil is already more than 
forty per cent exhausted, and that the native supply 
is not likely to last more than sixteen years longer. 
Our natural gas is likewise approaching exhaustion. 
A billion feet a day have been allowed to escape. An 
expert has lately told us that we have wasted more 
natural gas than we have used. 

However accurate these estimates may or may not 
be, it is certain that our oil-supplies, and our supplies 
of natural gas, will be practically exhausted before 
many years have passed. The large wastes represent 
a loss of wealth that can never be replaced. So it is, 
likewise, with our coal-supplies, which will last 
longer, but which will be exhausted, at best, within 
a brief period, as human history goes. Mining- 
methods are so wasteful that one expert declares that 
in West Virginia alone "for twenty years the waste 
has been equivalent to dumping each minute a forty- 
five ton car of coal into an abyss from which it can 
never be recovered." 



264 EFFICIENCY 

Another student of the situation points out that 
"as business is now organized it is actually more 
profitable to waste nearly 50 per cent of the coal that 
is mined than to preserve it by standardized methods 
of operation. If this situation persists it is probable 
that the fuel supply of the country will be entirely 
exhausted in 100 years. Under the present ^business- 
like bungling/ approximately 500,000,000 tons of 
coal are lost per year. The only remedy is a thor- 
ough reformation of mining methods by experts in 
the field, not by operators who see no further than 
their own immediate interests in profits.'' 

Indeed, a large proportion of the coal that is now 
transported on the railways ought to be transformed 
at the collieries into its various derivatives. The 
processes now available yield for every ton of raw 
coal up to 1,500 pounds of smokeless, dustless arti- 
ficial anthracite, together with from 7,000 to 10,000 
cubic feet of fuel gas. In addition, valuable by- 
products are recovered: some twenty or twenty-five 
pounds of ammonium sulphate, excellent for fer- 
tilizer ; from one and a half to three gallons of benzol, 
a substitute for gasoline; about eight gallons of coal 
tar, from which, as we all know, an endless number 
of extremely important products are made, including 
the aniline dyes, perfumes, flavors, drugs, and explo- 
sives. The value of these various products is fifteen 
or twenty times the value of the raw coal from which 
they were made. The processes by which they are 
made are well known. But still these potentialities 
are, for the most part, wasted. Even in the plants 
where coke and gas are made, the valuable by- 
products are often lost. 

Besides the recovery of these by-products, the plan 
of splitting up the coal at the mines has other great 



CONSERVATION 265 

advantages. For one thing, the mines could then be 
operated continuously instead of, as now, with a great 
seasonal fluctuation. The average coal-mine is idle 
about one-third of the year now, because of the falling 
off of demand in the summer and the difflculty of 
storing great quantities of coal. Some 600,000 men 
work, on an average, about two hundred days in the 
year, and are out of work the rest of the time, unless 
they can find some other job. If the mines were 
worked continuously, 400,000 men would suffice ; they 
would be steadily employed^ and the other 200,000 
men released for productive work elsewhere. 

Incidentally, the smoke caused by the burning of 
raw coal would be eliminated, and the damage done 
by smoke to property and health — estimated at over 
a billion dollars a year — would be ended. And think 
how much pleasanter our cities would be to live in, 
and how much more beautiful, if the smoke were 
done away with. 

Moreover, if the gas produced at the collieries were 
piped to the nearest cities, and only the smokeless fuel 
shipped, the number of coal-cars needed could be 
greatly reduced, and the railways freed from conges- 
tion. Of course it is profitable to the railway-owners 
— who are largely also the mine-owners, or hand in 
glove with them — to haul these thousands of carloads 
of raw coal, together with the dirt, slate, and water 
that the shipments contain, half way across the con- 
tinent. But it is not economical from the public 
point of view. 

Indeed, a large part even of this hauling of fuel 
would be done away with if it were to be burned near 
the collieries for the generation of electric power. 
Transmission-wires could take this power to the fac- 
tories at a great ultimate saving of energy. Thisi 



266 EFFICIENCY 

same system of transmission would be available for 
the hydro-electric power which must ultimately, it 
would seem, take the place of power produced from 
coal. 

We must not blame the coal-operators too severely 
for their lack of social vision. So long as they can 
make large profits by existing methods they can 
hardly be expected to think in terms of the welfare 
of the public and of future generations. The guiding- 
star of almost all business is — profits. If a public 
service is done, well and good. But how many of our 
business men sacrifice their opportunities for making 
money out of a disinterested regard for the public 
good? Some do; and they are greatly to be honored. 
But in general, the public must look out for itself. 
The public, of course, is mostly ignorant, and kept 
in ignorance, of the facts. And all attempts at public 
regulation of business are vigorously opposed. Dis- 
aster is predicted; the evils of democratic inter- 
ference with private business are eloquently de- 
scribed. Nevertheless, the public must learn how to 
conserve its interests. Until it does, we shall have 
not only much profiteering — which is not so serious 
a matter, after all, since some one gets the wealth — 
but much actual waste of human effort and of valu- 
able and irreplaceable natural resources. 

The growth of democracy in industry will undoubt- 
edly improve matters. Constant pronouncements are 
being made by organized labor, like that of the 
twenty-seventh Convention of the United Mine 
Workers: "The incomparable natural resources of 
America, particularly those of timber and coal, are 
being despoiled under a system of production which 
wastes from thirty-three to fifty per cent of these re- 
sources in order that the maximum amount of divi- 



CONSERVATION 267 

dends may accrue to those who have secured owner- 
ship of these indispensable commodities. Our coal 
resources are the birthright of the American people 
for all time to come ; and we hold that it is the imme- 
diate duty of the American people to prevent the 
profligate waste that is taking place under private 
ownership of these resources." 

The older countries cannot, of course, afford to 
waste natural products as lavishly as we. We have 
had so much to use that we have not realized that we 
were squandering our inheritance. But the day of 
reckoning is drawing near. Our grandchildren will 
bitterly reprove our selfish shortsightedness. We 
must, then, find men of \4sion, experts in their several 
fields. We must draw up a national plan for the 
prudent utilization of the resources that remain to 
us, and insist that private interests subordinate them- 
selves to this plan. 

Such a comprehensive plan formed a part of the 
program of neither of the great political parties at 
the last election; we have a way, common to all 
democracies, of getting excited over trivial issues and 
ignoring the really vital matters. No doubt there are 
those who exercise their skill in thus diverting public 
attention, for their own reasons. But if the poli- 
ticians will not take up this matter, the ear of the 
public must be reached by other channels, that we 
may salvage what remains to us of our fast vanishing 
heritage. 

We should, for one thing, greatly accelerate the 
rate at which our water-power is being developed, in 
order to save our dwindling supplies of coal. At 
present less than five per cent of our available water- 
power is utilized. The total supply is estimated at 
two hundred million horse-power — enough energy to 



268 EFFICIENCY 

do all the present mechanical work of the country, 
but not enough for all its future needs. There is peat 
available, there is lignite ; but the supply of these is 
likewise limited. Where future generations will get 
all the energy they need, and the heat, and the light, 
no one now can say. All the more reason, then, for 
making our coal last as long as possible. 

A few great corporations have been buying up 
water-power sites; and there are signs that we may 
have before very long a gigantic water-power trust, 
which, when oil and coal are approaching exhaustion, 
might easily become the dominating power in Ameri- 
can industry. For without power nothing can be 
done. It is of the utmost importance that the nation 
should keep its water-power under public control, 
that it may be utilized in the public interest instead 
of for the benefit of a small group of people. 

Parallel with water-power development should go 
the effort to make our streams navigable, and create 
a system of connecting canals. Water-borne traffic 
consumes less than half as much energy as freight 
carried by rail. If at the same time we improve our 
highways — only about twelve per cent of our roads 
are as yet improved by any sort of surfacing — we can 
save many hundreds of millions of dollars a year. 
In the face of all this need for work, the continual 
involuntary unemployment of thousands of men 
caused by the clumsiness of our industrial system is 
seen to have not only a personal but a public aspect. 
We need the labors of these men, at once, and badly. 

The term conservation may well be stretched to 
include the conservation of public health and life, 
and all conservation of human effort. The move- 
ments to eliminate preventable accidents, to eradicate 
the diseases that can be stamped out by concentrated 



CONSERVATION 269 

control, the child-labor movement, the spread of the 
use of labor-saving devices, the development of scien- 
tific management, the diminishing of friction between 
the members of the industrial mechanism — all this, 
and much more, might be covered by the term. But 
these movements we have discussed in other chapters. 
What we are here specifically concerned with is the 
prudent use of the raw materials with which nature 
has so generously endowed us. 

The leaders of our national life have not failed to 
warn us of our extravagance. Roosevelt gave stren- 
uous efforts to make Conservation one of our Ameri- 
can ideals. "It is time we should wake up the coun- 
try,'' he said in 1910, "to the need of using foresight 
and common sense as regards our natural resources. 
We of this generation hold the land in part for the 
use of the next generation and not exclusively for our 
own selfish enjoyment." 

Gifford Pinchot, former chief forester of the United 
States, has put the case even more trenchantly : "We 
are prosperous because our forefathers bequeathed 
to us a land of marvellous resources. Shall we con- 
serve those resources, and in our turn transmit them, 
still unexhausted, to our descendants? Unless we do, 
those who come after us will have to pay the price of 
misery, degradation and failure for the progress and 
prosperity of our day. . . . Business prudence and 
business common-sense indicate as strongly as any- 
thing can the absolute necessity of a change in point 
of view on the part of the people of the United States 
regarding their natural resources. The way we have 
been handling them is not good business. Purely on 
the side of dollars and cents, it is not good business 
to kill the goose that lays the golden egg — to burn up 
half our forests, to waste our coal, and to remove 



270 EFFICIENCY 

from under the feet of those who are coming after 
US the opportunity for equal happiness with our- 
selves." 

As this chapter is being revised for the press, the 
February, 1921, number of the Atlantic Monthly 
appears, with a vigorous article by a chemical engi- 
neer of wide experience, who sums up his conclusions 
as follows: ^'We need sadly to develop a national 
common-sense, and to apply it to the spending of our 
natural resources, which are the basis of our national 
wealth. More than ever before is the whole world 
under a heavy responsibility to use its resources 
wisely; and the major portion of that burden falls 
upon us who are the most richly endowed of all. . . . 
We must substitute co-ordinated development by 
planning for opportunist development designed pri- 
marily for the enrichment of the individual." 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

C. E. Van Hise, The Conservation of Natural Resources in the 

United States. 

Gifford Pinchot, The Fight for Conservation. 

H. J. Spooner, Vi'ealth from ^Vaste. 

R. Cronau, Our ^Yasteful Xation. 

American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, The Con- 
servation of Natural Resources. 

H. M. Gregory, Checking the ^Vaste. 

J. J. Hill, Highways of Progress. 

J. H. Patton, The Natural Resources of the United States. 

O. W. Price, The Land We Live In. 

C. G. Gilbert and J. E. Pogue, The Energy Resources of the 
United States. 

Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism: Chapters on 
Natural Resources, Conservation. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE COMMON GOOD 

The selfishness and shortsightedness that have shown 
themselves so flagrantly in the exploitation of our 
natural resources are to be found in a hundred ways 
impeding the socially eflicient conduct of American 
business. Money is thrown into ventures that prom- 
ise quick returns, and withheld from undertakings 
far more imperative from the public point of view. 
The bankers, who lend the ftmds for new enterprises, 
enlargements of plant, or prodtiction for future sale, 
have it within their power to considerable extent to 
favor or withhold favor at their discretion. The peo- 
ple as a whole, and their representatives, have little 
opportunity to decide whether, for example, agricul- 
ttire or mantifacturing or transportation shotild be 
aided with credit, whether hotising shotild be encour- 
aged, whether the savings of the American people 
should be invested in this country or abroad. Yet 
these are matters that vitally concern the nation as 
a whole. 

Take the matter of housing. For several years we 
have been in dire need of hundreds of thousands of 
homes. The building of private houses, apartments, 
and tenements has fallen far behind the growth in 
population. The result is a widespread discomfort, 
much serious inconvenience, and, for the poor, an 
overcrowding that is undermining the health and the 
morals of a considerable section of the population. 

271 



272 EFFICIENCY 

Yet theatres and garages have been going up in un- 
precedented numbers ; money has poured into for- 
eign investment in a great volume, lured by the low 
exchange rates; all sorts of socially unnecessary 
undertakings have been launched. The country is 
prosperous, but it apparently can not get, under the 
present management of its savings, the homes it 
imperatively needs. 

Moreover, in the conduct of a given business, the 
criterion of success has been the amount of profits 
it has paid to its stockholders, rather than the 
service it has rendered to the public. Recently an 
advertising circular of a well-known moving-picture 
concern stated, with pride, that it had taken in five 
million dollars in less than three years from an origi- 
nal investment of ?114,000. In other words, movie 
patrons had been made to pay for their seats enough 
more than the cost of producing and showing these 
pictures to pile up this yield to the producers. But 
this is not social efficiency, it is merely efficiency in 
making money for a few people by charging unneces- 
sarily high rates to the rest of the people. 

So, to take another example, has it been in life- 
insurance. The companies pay high salaries to their 
officers and high commissions to their agents, with 
the result that fifteen per cent cost of doing business 
has been considered reasonable. The United States 
government during the war insured four million 
Americans at an overhead cost of less than two per 
cent. It is needless to multiply instances. Mr. Roger 
Babson, the conservative financier, has expressed the 
point of the matter in the following words: ''The 
dominant thought in our whole industrial machineiy 
is not how we can produce the most, but how we can 
profit the most." 



THE COMMON GOOD 273 

Individual energy and initiative in business must 
indeed be encouraged. But the public must find ways 
to control that energy and initiative in the interests of 
the common good. The laissez-faire policy has shown 
its insufficiency. It is not merely the selfishness of 
men that needs checking, it is their honest stupidity, 
their shortsighted folly. Every year there are many 
thousands of business failures in this country. These 
usually involve economic waste and confusion, un- 
employment, a partial paralysis of the industrial- 
commercial system, as well as an incalculable amount 
of anxiety and despair. The great majority of sui- 
cides are due to business reverses; and suicides are 
increasing in this country far faster than the popula- 
tion. It is clear, from every angle, that private busi- 
ness must be far more carefully watched and con- 
trolled than heretofore. 

It is not that we are fundamentally a selfish people. 
On the contrary, no people are more generous than 
we in giving to the needy. The record of our philan- 
thropies astonishes the world. But this is still, for 
the most part, private altruism ; ^'business is busi- 
ness," still. And it can hardly be otherwise, if it is 
left free from legal control. For the contagion of 
profit-making is inevitably irresistible to most par- 
ticipants in the struggle. It is not merely for the 
money, it is for the pride in success; and success, 
according to present standards, means large profits. 
The business man who puts the public service first 
is in danger of being elbowed out by some less scru- 
pulous rival. How can one employer refuse to use 
child-labor when his rivals, by using it, are under- 
selling him? Or when the stockholders, whose servant 
he is, are demanding dividends as large as those his 
rivals produce? The game of business as it is played 



274 EFFICIENCY 

at present is a hard game; and unless one is excep- 
tionally able or favorably situated, one must play it 
according to the accepted rules. If the results are 
often socially undesirable, the rules of the game must 
be altered. 

Our fathers were so afraid of governmental tyranny 
that they wanted the power of the State as slight as 
possible. But the tyranny of today is not the tyranny 
of the State, it is the tyranny of money-making busi- 
ness. "Don't deceive yourselves for a moment," 
President Wilson has written, '^as to the power of 
the great interests which now dominate our develop- 
ment. They are so great that it is almost an open 
question whether the government of the United States 
can dominate them or not.'^ In the pioneer days, all 
were fairly equal in possessions and opportunities; 
free land was available for every one ; the State could 
leave them to work out their individual salvation. 
Today our lives have become endlessly interlinked; 
and the men who hold strategic positions have enor- 
mous power over our pocketbooks and our lives. The 
personal morality of the older preaching must be 
supplemented by a "social gospel," a doctrine of 
common responsibility for the common welfare. 

President Wilson, even when championing the 
"new freedom," pointed out that freedom alone is an 
insufficient ideal. "The individual is caught in a 
great confused nexus of all sorts of complicated cir- 
cumstances ; and to let him alone is to leave him help- 
less as against the obstacles with which he has to 
contend ; and therefore, law in our day must come to 
the assistance of the individual." The weak must be 
protected against the strong, the scrupulous against 
the unscrupulous. And nothing but law can accom- 
plish this. 



THE COMMON GOOD 275 

For we must not expect a new social-mindedness to 
replace the selfishness in men's hearts through the 
mere preaching of a gospel of repentance. Exhorta- 
tion will accomplish little, in the face of daily temp- 
tation and the sight of others "making their pile." 
Moreover, it is not right to expect any business man 
to run the risk of failure — itself a social loss^ — • 
through trying to live by a higher code than his 
fellows observe. No, the more socially-minded con- 
duct of business will come only through the patient 
construction of a system of guiding and restrain- 
ing laws. This legislation will not be irksome to 
the socially-minded, who will see its value, but it 
will restrain the unscrupulous and the greedy from 
conduct which tends to lower the standard of practice 
all along the line. 

We must recognize the fact that the capital which 
is invested in business has come out of the pockets 
of the people as a whole. For example, the Federal 
Trade Commission recently pointed out the origin 
of the capitalization of the meat-packing concerns. 
One of these concerns has put into its business about 
fourteen million dollars got from the sale of stocks 
and bonds, and about a hundred and forty million 
dollars gathered from the profits on sales. This is 
the public's share of the investment — about ninety 
per cent. Add to this the fact that the site-value of 
their plant has increased enormously owing to the 
growth in population, and we must realize that most 
of this property, though legally and legitimately 
theirs, has been contributed by the public, and must, 
therefore, be administered in the public interest. 

Most business men themselves, if they are educated 
to realize the social harmfulness of certain practices, 
will vote for laws to prohibit them, although if there 



276 EFFICIENCY 

is no law they will not refrain therefrom. This is 
partly because the law will restrict the other fellow 
too; and the harmfulness of his practices is more 
apparent to us than that of our own. But it is also 
because each of us has two selves; and the more 
public-minded self, which votes, is often willing to 
erect barriers to restrain the more individualistic 
self which the stress of business fosters. Such bar- 
riers to selfishness, when imposed not by an auto- 
cratic government upon its subjects but by free men 
upon themselves, are absolutely necessary steps in 
social progress. By this blocking of the pathways 
to anti-social activity, many a man whose impulses 
would have seized upon opportunities for exploitation 
will find perforce other channels for his activity that 
will lead him into a more useful and actually happier 
life. 

The cry of "hands off" is raised, to be sure, by many 
business men; and not wholly for selfish reasons. 
They remind us of our national ideal of Liberty, and 
point to the proud record of our individualistic tra- 
dition. But they forget that the ideal of Liberty 
exists to protect the weak, and must not be used to 
justify the strong in so acting as to impair the common 
good. Liberty means the right not to be exploited, 
not the right to exploit others. And individualism 
must mean the right of every citizen to have his share 
in determining what is for the public good, not the 
right of a single class of people to run the country's 
business in their private interest. 

From another angle, individualism is seen to be 
always a half-truth ; our great achievements liave been 
accomplished quite as truly through our power of 
organization and mutual adjustment as through our 
high degree of individual energy. What is needed now 



THE COMMON GOOD 277 

is to increase the span of organization and mutual 
adjustment until it includes the whole nation, instead 
of leaving it a mere organization of business men for 
purely private ends. 

True, legislation has often been ill-considered and 
blundering. Kesentment at the selfishness of many 
of the trusts has crystallized in laws which have some- 
times needlessly hampered the organization and effi- 
ciency of industry. Loosely-devised statutes, con- 
strued this way and that by different judges, have 
given opportunity for subterfuge and chicane. Never- 
theless, the work must go on. If laws are harmful, 
they must be improved. Ways must be found to en- 
courage industrial progress while restricting unscru- 
pulous and anti-social practices^ — whatever is obvi- 
ously unfair to business rivals, to employees, or to the 
public. It is inevitable that the devising of the new 
controls over industry should be experimental and 
sometimes unfortunate in their results. Political 
democracy will require perhaps centuries yet to grope 
its way toward the best attainable forms of public 
control. But the only way out is through. And oppo- 
sition to the great movement only creates friction and 
retards its achievement. 

The principle of public control in the interest of the 
common good extends, of course, far beyond the field 
of industry, though that is its most important sphere 
of application. We have recentl^^ seen the successful 
consummation of the Prohibition Movement, which has 
interfered with the personal habits of millions. There 
can be no doubt in the mind of anyone who has studied 
the physiological and psychological effects of alcohol 
that our people are vastly better off, and on the whole 
and in the end far happier, to do without that nar- 
cotic. This voluntary self-abnegation on the part of 



278 EFFICIENCY 

a gi^eat nation is almost unexampled in history, and an 
event of which we may well be proud. There is no 
more reason to declaim against the prohibition of 
alcohol than against the prohibition of the opium and 
cocaine derivatives. Any drug that seriously under- 
mines the health and efficiency of our people must be 
banished as rigidly as possible, however pleasant its 
use may be to many. 

But the precedent established by the Eighteenth 
Amendment has its dangerous side. The majority — 
even the sweeping majorities needed to pass an amend- 
ment to the Constitution — should beware of interfer- 
ing more than is absolutely necessary with the per- 
sonal morals of indi\dduals. For not only does such 
interference awaken resentment and excite against 
itself the passion for liberty, but there is also the 
danger of ignoring indi^ddual needs, repressing 
desirable variations in conduct, and producing a 
stereotyped and conventional conformity instead of 
the variety of experiments and variations which is 
the fertile seed-bed of progress. In general, it may 
be said that in the spheres wherein success and hap- 
piness depend largely upon organization and mutual 
adaptation, as notably in industry, a great deal of 
restriction upon individual rights is necessary; 
whereas in the field of personal habits and morals, 
religious beliefs and worship, artistic activity, and 
intellectual research and discussion, only the prac- 
tices universally recognized as vicious, or shown by 
scientific investigation to be seriously harmful, should 
be forbidden. 

The problem of individualism vs. social control is 
an intricate one, to which no glib solution is possible. 
Every case must be decided upon its merits. In some 
cases the joys and potentialities of unrestricted 



THE COMMON GOOD 27« 

liberty are more precious, in other cases the public 
need must weigh the heavier in the balance. Hith- 
erto, in America, we have worshipped individualism, 
and — according to the judgment of nearly all foreign 
observers — lacked ^^statemindedness,'' the willingness 
to subordinate ourselves to the general welfare. 
But the Great War, with its conscription of men and 
mone}^, and its steam-rollering of minoiity opinions, 
revealed a hitherto unrealized willingness to exercise 
compulsion in what the overwhelming majority deems 
the public interest. That this new sense of the moral 
and legal precedence of public over private interests 
may be used for good rather than unfortunate ends 
needs our utmost vigilance. 

Washington, in a letter to the Constitutional Con- 
vention, pointed out that ^individuals entering into 
society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the 
rest.'^ To learn to subordinate sectional to national 
interests has taken us many years; the lesson was 
driven home by the crushing defeat of the Secession 
movement, but it has not yet been thoroughly learned. 
Bills are constantly introduced into Congress that 
favor one section of the country at the expense of 
the countiy as a whole. Projects of obvious benefit 
to the nation are blocked because of the opposition of 
certain States or cities that fear the diversion of 
their trade or the diminution of their prestige. We 
still lack such a sense of solidarity as would ensure 
us against this geographical selfishness. 

A century or so ago the several States were prac- 
tically self-sufficing; comparatively few undertakings 
crossed their boundaries. Now State lines mean 
almost nothing. Our railways, telegraphs, tele- 
phones, have bound us together in one industrial and 
political unit. It remains for us to work out a 



280 EFFICIENCY 

greater harmony between State laws. As it is, to 
quote a recent writer, ^'In one State you may do busi- 
ness for which in another State you would go to jail ; 
in one you may be married and crazy, in another 
single and sane." This variety in codes is of great 
educative value; but in the cases mentioned, and in 
other respects, it is high time for us to seek a greater 
national uniformity. The American of today seldom 
thinks of himself as first a citizen of New York, or 
Illinois; he is first and foremost a citizen of the 
United States, and only secondarily a citizen of the 
particular State in which he happens to reside. It is 
an anomaly, then, that the disparities in State laws 
should ever produce such confusion and injustice as 
that to which the sentence above quoted alludes. 

Geographical sectionalism is probably waning. 
But we must beware lest a class or occupational sec- 
tionalism take its place. There are powerful divisive 
forces at work. The development of Big Business 
has pushed the employer class and the wage-earners 
farther apart; they live differently, have different 
interests, read different newspapers, think differently, 
and perhaps in an increasing degree fail to under- 
stand one another and to work together as comple- 
mentary elements in one harmonious industrial 
scheme. 

Thus America, at first so homogeneous in her social 
order, now faces the old-world problem of class- 
stratification. Fifth Avenue is far from Second 
Avenue, Beacon Street from the North End. If this 
nation ever loses its unity it will be through a hori- 
zontal split between the property-owning classes and 
propertyless labor. To avert such a calamity must 
be our constant aim and prayer. We should remem- 
ber Roosevelt's solemn words : "Other republics have 



THE COMMON GOOD 281 

failed because the citizens gradually grew to consider 
the interests of the class against the whole ; for, when 
such was the case, it mattered not whether the poor 
plundered the rich or the rich exploited the poor; in 
either case the end of the republic was at hand. We 
are resolute not to fall into such a pit. This great 
Republic of ours shall never become the government 
of a plutocracy and it shall never become the govern- 
ment of a mob.'' 

The way of our duty lies clearly in cultivating the 
sense of common American ideals as transcending the 
interests of group or class. Party loyalty must cease 
to be blind or selfish ; it must be a matter of tempo- 
rary union to achieve some definite political ends 
seriously believed to be for the general good. Special 
interests must cease to use their wealth and power to 
defeat measures that will make for the public welfare. 
The conscious aim of both parties to the industrial 
struggle must be to work out an industrial system 
both just and efficient. Or — since it is Utopian to 
expect such a voluntarily maintained wide-spread 
subordination of private and group interests^ — the 
public must watch its component groups, and by a 
series of carefully devised checks and restraints, 
reduce to a minimum their power to thwart the 
common good. 

Finally, in all sorts of positive ways, the people, 
through their legislators, must forward the general 
happiness. We already provide parks and play- 
grounds, hospitals and asylums, public schools and 
universities, libraries and museums, and many other 
privileges, freely to every American citizen. All sorts 
of other public benefits are being discussed — health 
and old age insurance, maternity benefits, public em- 
ployment for the unemployed, and the like. Each of 



282 EFFICIENCY 

these projects must be accepted or rejected on its par- 
ticular merits. But we have definitely abandoned the 
conception that the function of government is purely 
negative, to prevent wrongdoing. Our government is 
the American people using its sovereign power to 
forward in every possible way the common good. The 
record of what our government already does for us 
is an inspiring one ; and doubtless the future will see 
its beneficent activity extended in many directions. 
May its aim ever be, not sectional advantage, not 
class control, not the advancement of special inter- 
ests, but the good of the American people as a whole ! 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Webster's Reply to Haynes, Jan. 26, 1830 (Reprinted in Foer- 

ster and Pierson, op. cit., p. 17). 
John Fiske, American Political Ideas, II. 
James Bryce, The American Commonwealth^ Book I, Chapters 

XXIX, XXX. 
Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism: chapters on The 

Nation and The States. 
J. H. Tufts, Our Democracy, Chapters XVIII-XXI. 
C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, Chapters VIII, 

X. 
Ida Tarbell, New Ideals in Business. 
Gerald Stanley Lee, We. 

E. D. Page, etc.. Morals in Modern Business. 
Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Chapter XXVII. 
H. R. Seager, Social Insurance. 
J. B. and J. M. Clark, Control of the Trusts. 
Florence Kelley, Some Ethical Gains Through Legislation. 

E. A. Ross, Social Control. 

J. W. Jenks, Government Action for Social Welfare. 

F. L. Stetson, in Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 110, p. 27. 
Arthur Ruhl, in Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 123, p. 686. 



PART FIVE 
PATRIOTISM 



CHAPTER XXV 

AMERICA FIRST 

Washington, in his Farewell Address, said to his 
countrymen : ^^Citizens, by birth or choice, of a com- 
mon country, that country has a right to concentrate 
your affections." 

The American of today yields to no one in patriot- 
ism ; certainly we make more noise about it than any 
other nation ! The fact that we are a composite peo- 
ple, gathered here from many lands with mutually 
hostile traditions, has not worked to make us less 
united, or less loyal to this country of our birth or 
adoption. On the contrary, there is actually, beyond 
doubt, a greater spiritual homogeneity here than in 
most of those older lands. It is not common ancestry 
that makes national unity, it is common ideals, and 
common hopes. The Great War showed that men 
of all racial stocks were equally eager to give their 
money, their labor, and their lives to the national 
service. There are varying degrees of sympathy for, 
or hostility toward, the several nations of the old 
world ; but for us all it is "America first." 

There is, indeed, in some quarters, a distrust of 
this patriotic sentiment. Here and there a band of 
''internationalists" disavow it. A small group of 
pacifists, among them men of the highest motives, and 
a few leaders of distinction, speak of the nationalistic 
emotion as a primitive and dangerous passion, to be 
superseded by the boundai'yless brotherhood of man. 

285 



286 PATKIOTISM 

And we must all recognize the force of their argu- 
ments. Patriotism often functions as a collective 
selfishness, more disastrous by far than individual 
selfishness. It easily degenerates into chauvinism, 
or, as we call it, jingoism, inspiring men with the lust 
of conquest, provoking jealousy and hatred of other 
nations, impeding the unification of mankind. If it 
were not for patriotism, it would be impossible to 
get the peoples to go to war with one another. And 
when we see the suffering and the ruin that war has 
brought to man, we may well ask if the value of 
patriotism can counterbalance this harm. 

Even when patriotism is not truculent it is — 
speaking in nationalistic termsi — self-centered. It 
tends to ignore the achievements, to dislike the man- 
ners and morals of other peoples. It thinks of them 
as "foreigners,'' that is, as being essentially different 
from us, and prefers to believe that everything we do 
is better than what they do, that every opinion we 
hold is truer than theirs. Thus it tends to be pro- 
vincial, to erect barriers that impede the free ex- 
change of ideas and ideals, and to deprive each nation, 
to some extent, of what the other nations could con- 
tribute to its development. 

When patriotism goes even farther in this direction 
and becomes "spread-eagleism,'' it is insufferable. 
The boastful American, bragging endlessly of his 
country's prosperity and power, curling his lips 
patronizingly at the lower buildings or slower trains 
or less comfortable hotels of some foreign land, and 
making it plain that he will be thankful to get back 
to "God's own country," brings us into serious dis- 
repute. As a matter of fact, while our civilization is 
in some respects superior to that of most other coun- 
tries, it is in other respects inferior; we have much 



AMERICA FIEST 287 

to learii as well as much to teach. And the compla- 
cent self-satisfaction of the unmannerly tourist is 
one of the developments of our national life of which 
we have least reason to be proud. 

Even worse is the bigotry that, parading under the 
cloak of patriotism, seeks to stamp out all criticism 
of our contemporary institutions or of the policies of 
the party in power, on the ground that such criticism 
is "unpatriotic." During a time of war this intoler- 
ance of minority opinions is less inexcusable; the 
successful prosecution of the war may require a tem- 
porary willingness to submerge differences and unite 
on the policy that approves itself to the majority. 
But even then, the suppression of criticism is highly 
dangerous. Administrations commit serious blunders 
for the lack of the light that such criticism might 
have shed. And since even a democracy may be led 
into an unrighteous or inexpedient war, the right to 
discuss the whole matter with perfect freedom is of 
the utmost importance. It takes courage to maintain 
unpopular opinions, it takes individuality to think 
up new ideas; such courage and individuality are 
among our best assets, and should be encouraged 
rather than repressed. We are far too apt to swing 
with the tide, to be carried off our feet by a wave of 
popular feeling, or to stick in the rut of unthinking 
habit. Men who differ from the majority by no means 
always do so from selfish or traitorous motives; on 
the contrary, they may be actuated by ideals far 
higher than those of their persecutors. 

Mr. Gilbert Chesterton recently wrote, "I have 
passed the great part of my life in criticizing and 
condemning the existing rulers and institutions of 
my country : I think it is infinitely the most patriotic 
thing that a man can do." The real anti-patriots 



288 PATIRIOTISM 

are not the critics and would-be reformers of our 
institutions, not those who hold unpopular views 
or oppose contemporary policies, but rather the ill- 
mannered and truculent, who give us a bad name 
among neighboring peoples or inflame our feelings 
against them ; the advocates of "national expansion," 
who would have us trample on the rights of other 
nations to increase our own power and prosperity; 
the idle and frivolous, who fail to contribute their 
share to the nation's work ; the profiteers, who think 
in terms of their own pocket-books instead of in terms 
of public service; the groups that put sectional or 
class interests above the national interest and think 
in terms of group-loyalty rather than in terms of the 
common good. 

Professor J. M. Mecklin, in a recent volume, points 
out that the American "is patriotic. But the state 
that elicits his patriotism is a hazy idealistic entity 
that bears about the same relation to actual politics 
that the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount does to 
the ^rules of the game' in business. These shadowy 
ideals find expression at Fourth of July celebrations, 
or are evoked by the name of Lincoln or the sight 
of the flag. Seldom do they provide moral dynamic 
in dealing with the problems of the immediate poli- 
tical situation." 

There is no doubt that as a people we are lacking, 
as Mr. Wells and many other observers have pointed 
out, in "state-mindedness." The complacency with 
which we have allowed politics to become the happy 
hunting-ground of self-seeking politicians, or with 
which we have allowed our precious natural resources 
to be recklessly wasted, are examples of this ineffec- 
tiveness of our patriotic emotions. Our patriotism 
has been too largely oratorical, a pride in what our 



AMERICA FIRST 289 

fathers did, rather than a concrete impulse to make 
sacrifices ourselves for our country. Our young men 
are, indeed, ready to die for their country, ready to 
serve her unselfishly in time of war. But in the ordin- 
ary times of peace there seems to be too often a hiatus 
between their sentiment of patriotism and the duties 
and sacrifices to which it should lead them. 

The fact is, that patriotism, like religion and love 
and every other great passion, is capable of great 
good and of great harm. Edith Cavell, as she went to 
her death, uttered four words which many people 
have declared the greatest saying of the war — 
"Patriotism is not enough." The critics of patriotism 
are right, with reference to the wrong kind of patriot- 
ism, the kind that is nothing but a larger egotism, a 
bias of the emotions and the judgment, an intolerant 
bigotry, a latent hostility to other peoples, or a ruth- 
lessness in attaining national ends. But on the other 
hand, at its best it is one of the noblest sentiments, 
and far too valuable a motive force to be allowed to 
wane. 

Just in itself, as a joy and addition to life, it is 
worth much to us. Edward Everett Hale's familiar 
story, "The Man Without a Country,'' drives home 
this truth. We have many beautiful mountains and 
seas, rivers, lakes, cities, and park-like countrysides; 
we may well be passionately attached to the land and 
sing with genuine emotion "I love thy rocks and rills, 
thy woods and templed hills." We have splendid 
public buildings, noble works of art and literature. 
We have a roll-call of heroes of which we may be 
deeply proud. We have traditions of high idealism 
which should be a stimulus to the apathetic and a 
rebuke to the selfish. To glory in all this is our right 
and our high privilege. 



290 PATEIOTISM 

What a pity then, that we Americans should often 
seem to glory above all else in our prosperity and 
wealth, our mere size and power! It is not particu- 
larly to our credit that our ancestors found an empty 
and unexploited continent awaiting them, or that this 
abundance of free land and rich natural resources 
has made us richer than the older, crowded nations. 
Nor is it particularly to our merit that we have been 
able to keep relatively free from wars, with the oceans 
protecting us on either side. The question is rather, 
What have we done with this lavish wealth, this un- 
exampled opportunity? Are we building therewith a 
beautiful, brotherly, happy civilization? We have 
much of which to be ashamed. Pride is legitimate, 
and desirable; but it should be discriminating, evoked 
by what is really deserving of pride, and coupled 
with a genuine humility as we consider our faults 
and face the unformed future. 

Above all, we must make our patriotism "not the 
will to power but the will to serve.'' We should be 
proud to be honorable, generous, and conciliatory. 
We should desire for our country not its enrichment 
or power at the expense of other peoples, but such 
achievements as will redound to our common advan- 
tage. Our rivalry should be a rivalry in service. In 
the words of Mr. Stuart Sherman, "the new type of 
patriot no longer cries ^My country against the 
world !' but ^My country for the world !' '' 

Koosevelt did much to awaken this higher form of 
patriotism. "So far,'' he once wrote, "from patriot- 
ism being inconsistent with a proper regard for the 
rights of other nations, I hold that the true patriot, 
who is as jealous of the national honor as a gentleman 
of his own honor, will be careful to see that the nation 
neither inflicts nor suffers wrong, just as a gentleman 



AMERICA FIRST 291 

scorns equally to wrong others or to suffer others 
to wrong him." And again, "True patriotism carries 
with it not hostility to other nations, but a quickened 
sense of responsible good-will towards other nations." 

Admiral Decatur is reported to have said, in words 
that have become famous, "Our country! In her 
intercourse with foreign nations may she be always 
in the right; but our country, right or wrong!" In a 
very real sense we can all say Amen ! to these words. 
Whatever wrongs our country may commit, she is still 
our country, and we shall love and serve her with un- 
diminished ardor. But if these words mean that we 
should back an iniquitous policy, if our officials 
should be led into it, or even if a temporary popular 
majority should approve it, they are sinister words, 
deserving the sternest rebuke. Precisely the most 
patriotic service, on such an occasion, would consist 
in opposing to the last ditch the act that in our opinion 
would stain the national honor. Our country, right 
or wrong, yes; but if our country seems to you or to 
me to be, in any instance, in the wrong, it is our 
sacred duty not to connive at her wrongdoing, but 
to use whatever infinitesimal influence we may have 
in the effort to turn her back to the right, that her 
record may be untarnished and her name held in high 
honor among nations. 

It is an old fallacy that a nation's honor requires 
it to be touchy and quick to resentment, that the way 
for it to be great is through making itself feared. It 
should be the pride of America that in spite of her 
great strength she is not feared but loved. It should 
be our boast that in our dealings with other countries 
we are always generous, always considerate of their 
interests as well as of our own; that we practice no 
secret intrigues, seek to get the advantage of no one, 



292 PATKIOTISM 

but do unto other nations as we would have them do 
unto us. If this reputation were everywhere to be 
ours, how proud we should be to be Americans! 

On the whole, as compared with the world's long 
history of international intrigue and chicane, our 
record is excellent. Secretaiy Hay stated our policy 
as follows: ^'The principles which have guided us 
have been of limpid simplicity . . . We have set no 
traps ; we have wasted no time in evading the imagin- 
ary traps of others . . . There might be worse repu- 
tations for a country to acquire than that of always 
speaking the truth, and always expecting it from 
others. In bargaining we have tried not to get the 
worst of the deal, always remembering however, that 
the best bargains are those that satisfy both sides 
. . . Let us hope we may never be big enough to out- 
grow our conscience." 

This statement, by one of our greatest Secretaries 
of State, of his working ideal, carries out the admoni- 
tion of Washington : "Our politics must have for its 
basis the purest principles of private morality; and 
tlie same virtues which commend the good man to the 
esteem of his fellows must commend our republic to 
the esteem of the world.'' President Wilson voiced 
this same ideal in an address to Congress, when he 
said, "We are at the beginning of an age in which 
it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct 
and responsibility for wrong done shall be observed 
among nations and their governments that are ob- 
served among individual citizens of civilized states." 

Magnanimity and absence of rancor, courtesy 
toward our neighbors, a readiness to listen to what 
other peoples have to say, and a serious effort to 
understand them and adjust our needs to theirs, have 
distinguished the greatest Americans, and made 



AMERICA FIRST 293 

them not only national heroes but men whom all the 
world delights to honor. But the path is not easy 
to tread; and we must be constantly on our guard 
lest we lapse from this high ideal. It is easy to see 
the motes in our neighbors' eyes; their traditions 
and problems are not ours, and we can readily per- 
suade ourselves that we should have been juster, 
more disinterested, more generous, in such and such 
a case, than they. It would better behoove us to listen 
with open minds to the criticisms of our own conduct 
on the part of these others. For abstract ideals easily 
go by the board in the face of concrete exigencies; 
and to see ourselves as others see us is a salutary 
discipline. 

In a word, it is not more patriotism quantitatively 
that we need, but a higher quality of patriotism ; not 
the sort of patriotism that has a chip on its shoulder, 
but the sort that seeks to make our nation first in 
justice, honor, and international service. And even 
more imperatively, the sort of patriotism that will 
make us conscious of our national solidarity, and glad 
to sacrifice our personal interests to the greatest wel- 
fare of our people as a whole. '^America first" should 
mean precisely that ; — the welfare of our country be- 
fore our personal advantage. In the words of Mr. 
Elihu Root, ''True love of country means a little 
different feeling toward every American because he 
is an American. It means a desire that every Ameri- 
can shall be prosperous; it means kindly considera- 
tion for his opinions, for his views, for his interests, 
for his prejudices, and charity for his follies and his 
errors." 

Tliis sort of patriotism will not develop unaided, 
from Fourth of July celebrations and salutations of 
the flag. It must be carefully fostered, by systematic 



294 PATRIOTISM 

and skillful training. It requires the vigilance of 
every high-minded citizen to keep it from lapsing into 
its more primitive fonns. But if it can be developed 
in masses of our countiymen into the noble passion 
that it has been in our greatest leaders, it will be a 
dynamic of incalculable power and beneficence. 

"Out of a land of comfort and of ease, 

Holdins: for conscience' sake the world well lost, 
Our dauntless fathers dared the winter seas, 

The savage arrow, and the hungry frost. 
Knowing the danger, counting well the cost. 

The legend of their courage we recall — 
We thrill with pride to know that in our veins 

The glow of that heroic blood remains. 
We thrill— and that is all. 

''We pile our heroes' cairns, each year a stone; 

It is our joy the starry flag to wave 
For those who died for freedom of our own 

And those who died for freedom of the slave. 
Laying our laurel on each patriot's grave, 

Proudly we tell of liberty's great price 
And echo with a glibness undismayed 

Words bled from the deep hearts of those who paid. 
Shall not their blood suffice? 

''We who have grown so perfect in the word. 
Where is the holy lightning of the deed? 

We of the facile heart so quickly stirred 

And soothed with dreams ere it has time to bleed, 

Vainly we call ourselves the Pilgrim seed — 
Where is the Pilgrim soul that braved the sea 

For a pure conscience? God awake the men 
Of power to make America again 

A country of the free!" 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. 

J. M. Gathany, ed., American Patriotism in Prose and Verse. 

G. K. Chesterton, Patriotism, in The Defendant. 

George Santayana, Reason in Society, Chap. YII. 

R. B. Perry, The Free Man and the Soldier, Chap. III. 



AMERICA FIRST 295 

Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals, Chap. V. 
Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism. 
Gifford Pinchot, The Fight for Conservation, XII. 
L. A. Mead, Patriotism and the New Internationalism. 
I. W. Howerth, in Educational Review, vol. 44, p. 13. (Re- 
printed in Fulton, op. cit., p. 210). 
Arthur Bullard, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 119, p. 491. 
F. M. Stawell, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 25, p. 292. 
Alfred Jordan, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 15, p. 1. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

PEACEABLENESS 

A PATRIOTIC people need not be militant ; and in spite 
of the half dozen wars that we have waged during the 
brief span of our national life, we are a peace-loving 
folk. We have tried to observe Washington's injunc- 
tion to "observe good faith and justice toward all na- 
tions/' and to live in relations of mutual esteem and 
good will with the rest of the world. 

We cannot control the spirit of other nations. But 
to no small extent, their attitude toward us will be 
determined by our attitude toward them. Emerson 
thus expressed the fearlessness with which a peace- 
loving people faces the future : "Whenever we see the 
doctrine of peace embraced by a nation, we may be 
assured that it will not be one that invites injury; 
but one, on the contrary, which has a friend in the 
bottom of the heart of every man, even of the violent 
and the base ; one against which no weapon can pros- 
per; one which is looked upon as the asylum of the 
human race and has the tears and the blessings of 
mankind." 

Our hatred of war results from no lack of daring or 
ambition. On the contrary, our people have sprung 
from the more adventurous and hardy of the Old 
World, who had the courage and persistence to cross 
the ocean and make a new life for themselves in a far- 
away land. When we have had to face war we have 
fought as fiercely and as fearlessly as any. But our 

296 



PEACEABLENESS 297 

composite origin, our distance from the ancient feuds 
of Europe, and the relative security afforded by our 
isolation, have given us a calmer outlook and enabled 
us to see war for the horror that it is. It was our 
General Sherman whose dictum ^^War is hell" has 
become so famous. And the boys who made such a 
gallant record for America on the fields of France 
have for the most part come home resolved that if they 
can help it, no such horror shall recur. 

But the American spirit is not that of non-resis- 
tance to evil. We were very reluctant, as a people, to 
enter the Great War; but the day came when it 
seemed a worse evil to stay out than to go in. There 
are wrongs so intolerable that even the horrors of war 
are to be preferred. And we must face the fact that 
such a situation may, possibly, arise again. If an 
aggressive military imperialism again seeks to enslave 
a weaker country, to seize its territory, crush its peo- 
ples' spirit, and plunder its resources for its own ag- 
grandizement, and if no other way than war seems 
open to prevent that black and cruel tyranny, then 
war there must be again. Better that millions should 
die on the field, better that civilization should perish, 
if need be, than that such injustice should be done. 
So speaks the traditional American spirit. 

America's passion for justice has been voiced by 
no one more eloquently than by Roosevelt. "Peace 
is not the end," he declared, "Righteousness is the end 
. . . It is a wicked thing to be neutral between right 
and wrong." "The chief trouble comes from the en- 
tire inability of these worthy people to understand 
that they are demanding things that are mutually in- 
compatible when they demand peace at any price and 
also justice and righteousness." "The golden hopes 
of mankind can be realized only by men who have iron 



298 PATEIOTISM 

in their blood; by men who scorn to do wrong and 
equally scorn to submit to wrong; by men of gentle 
souls whose hearts are harder than steel in their 
readiness to war against brutality and evil." "The 
only peace of permanent value is the peace of right- 
eousness." 

The trouble with the peace-at-any-price attitude is, 
that if there is any people bent on ruthless aggression, 
it plays into their hands. This was what Koosevelt 
saw so clearly. "The existence of soft timidity in one 
nation puts a premium upon brutality in another." 
"The ultra-pacifists have exerted practically no in- 
fluence in restraining wrong, although they have 
sometimes had a real and lamentable influence in 
crippling the forces of right and preventing them 
from dealing with wrong." 

It is unhappily true that the highest ends can 
sometimes be attained only by the most tragic means. 
Many of the goods that we value most have been won 
only through the willingness of our fathers to fight 
for them. In the words of another American of inci- 
sive thought and speech. Professor A. O. Lovejoy of 
Johns Hopkins, "That youths should be sent out 
armed to kill or maim other youths is an unspeakably 
abominable thing ; but it is yet more abominable that 
through horror at this evil, the lovers of peace should 
become the silent partners of those that make and 
would perpetuate war, and that our youth should be 
bred to sit by with folded hands while others are 
made the victims of lawless violence." 

Our participation in the Great War was directed 
by such motives. The question before us was, should 
we allow these unoffending peoples to be enslaved and 
dominated, against their passionate protest, by an 
ambitious and ruthless nation? Their youths were 



PEACEABLENESS 299 

dying by the million to preserve their liberties ; could 
we sit by and see their sacrifice vain? President Wil- 
son voiced the mind of our people in his reply to the 
Pope, August 29, 1917 : ^^The object of this war is to 
deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace 
and the actual power of a vast military establishment 
controlled by an irresponsible government, which, 
having secretly planned to dominate the world, pro- 
ceeded to carry the plan out without regard either to 
the sacred obligations of treaty or the long established 
practices and long cherished principles of interna- 
tional action and honor ; which chose its own time for 
the war; delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly; 
stopped at no barrier, either of law or of mercy, swept 
a whole continent within the tide of blood — not the 
blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent wo- 
men and children also, and of the helpless poor — and 
now stands balked but not defeated, the enemy of 
four-fifths of the world." 

President Wilson delayed long our entrance into 
the war. ^^Never shall I forget,'' he wrote, "that the 
sword is not to be drawn until the last moment, to 
defend public liberties, and that it is to be returned 
to the scabbard at the first moment when those liber- 
ties are safe." "The choice we make for ourselves 
must be made with a moderation of counsel and a 
tempera teness of judgment befitting our character 
and our motives as a nation. We must put excited 
feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge, or the 
victorious assertion of the physical might of the na- 
tion, but only the vindication of right, of human right 
. . . we have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no 
conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for 
ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices 
we shall freely make. We are but one of the cham- 



300 PATEIOTISM 

pions of the rights of mankind ; we shall be satisfied 
when those rights have been made as secure as faith 
and the freedom of nations can make them . . . The 
day has come when America is privileged to spend her 
blood and her might for the principles that gave her 
birth and happiness and the peace which she has treas- 
ured. God helping her, she can do no other.'' 

Four years earlier, when a clamor rose among the 
hot-tempered for intervention in Mexico, Mr. Wilson 
had shown the same spirit of generosity and modera- 
tion. "Impatience on our part would be childish, and 
would be fraught with every risk of wrong and folly 
. . . We can afford to exercise the self-restraint of 
a really great nation which realizes its own strength 
and scorns to misuse it." 

This declaration of national policy should be put 
side by side with Washington's "I have always 
thought that no nation should meddle with the inter- 
national affairs of another nation." And with Presi- 
dent Harrison's "In no case do we desire territorial 
possessions which do not directly form one body with 
our national domain ; and we nowhere desire a domain 
acquired by criminal aggression." 

These sentiments have been repeated over and over 
again by our statesmen, and express the true spirit of 
Americanism. But it is wise to repeat them often, 
since there are not wanting jingoes in our midst, and 
those who would gladly find profit or prestige in an- 
other people's humiliation. Certain newspaper own- 
ers have been persistently trying to inflame our fears 
and our resentment toward other nations. And not a 
few citizens of the nations to the south of us suspect 
us of imperialistic designs. Our interventions in 
Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua, our acquisition 
of Porto Rico and the Canal Zone, may easily seem to 



PEACEABLENESS 301 

be the first steps in an attempt to extend our sway- 
over the relatively feeble nations below our borders. 
And we must confess that our diplomacy has not al- 
ways been such as to remove these fears. A South 
American of eminence is reported to have said re- 
cently, ^To live on the shady side of the big stick is 
not pleasant." 

It is unfortunate that the Monroe Doctrine, intend- 
ed for the protection of our weaker neighbors, should 
have come to be construed in some quarters as an 
attempt to dominate them. President Monroe's 
words were "The American continents, by the free 
and independent condition which they have assumed 
and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered 
as subjects for future colonization by any European 
powers." They were intended as a warning to the 
world that we should not allow any further perman- 
ent occupation of territory or acquisition of political 
control in the American hemisphere by a non-Ameri- 
can power. 

Now that some of the South American peoples have 
become stable in their government, and powerful na- 
tions, it would be courteous to cease talking of our- 
selves as the guardian of their liberties, and to con- 
sider the Monroe doctrine as upheld by the united 
will and might of the peoples of North and South 
America. In Mr. Wilson's address to the Pan-Ameri- 
can Conference, he declared that there is in it "no 
claim of guardianship or thought of wards, but in- 
stead, a full and honorable association as of partners 
between ourselves and our neighbors, in the interest 
of all America north and south . . . All the govern- 
ments of America stand, as far as we are concerned, 
upon a feeling of genuine equality and unquestioned 
independence^" 



302 PATKIOTISM 

The Monroe doetrine is, after all, nothing but a 
special application of the principle of the self-deter- 
mination of nations, for the sake of which we fought 
in the Great War. Indeed, Mr. Wilson has proposed 
^'that the nations should with one accord adopt the 
doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the 
world ; that no nation should seek to extend its policy- 
over any other nation or people, but that every people 
should be left free to determine its own policy, its 
own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, 
unafraid, the little along with the great and power- 
ful." 

Nothing is of more vital moment than that we 
should convince the world of our pacific intentions, 
our absolute determination to infringe on the rights 
and liberties of no other people, together with an 
equal determination to stand with the other moral 
forces in the world in opposing such aggression on the 
part of any other nation. While maintaining a reas- 
onable preparedness for possible emergencies, we 
must avoid belying our pacific declarations by seek- 
ing to outbuild the navies of other nations or by 
maintaining a large standing army. As we are the 
strongest and securest among the nations, it is our 
plain duty to lead the way toward disarmament. 
Happily we are so situated that we can avoid the crea- 
tion of a great military establishment — which, as 
Washington warned his countrymen, is always "in- 
auspicious to liberty, and particularly hostile to re- 
publican liberty." 

The common sense of the American people refuses 
to believe that the war of man against man is a neces- 
sary evil, ineradicable from human life. We confi- 
dently look forward to the time of man's coming of 
age, when he shall lay aside his foolish passions, his 



PEACEABHENESS 303 

insensate will to destroy, and learn to put all his 
energy and his devotion into the great common war 
against nature. That this time may come quickly, we 
must keep before our people the remembrance of the 
horror and the wickedness of war — not to belittle the 
heroism of our forefathers, or of the youth of today, 
but to remind ourselves that such terrible sacrifices 
must not again be necessary, that a better way must 
be found to maintain justice among men. 

The Great War took the lives of some eight mil- 
lion men in battle, and was directly or indirectly re- 
sponsible, according to the Danish Bureau of Statis- 
tics, for at least forty million deaths. We, to be sure, 
because of our tardy entrance, lost but one in two 
hundred of our young men. But England lost one 
in four, and France one in three. The great increase 
in the prevalence of many diseases will take many 
years to offset. The influenza epidemic, due to the 
war, killed its millions — very largely the young and 
strong ; tuberculosis has a new hold all over Europe ; 
syphilis has been widely spread; famine and pesti- 
lence are not yet under control. In the third year 
after the Armistice, millions of people are close to 
starvation; many of these must still succumb. 

The suffering of this war touched our people but 
lightly. But it has come close enough to us to teach 
us its lesson. The horrors of the trenches ; the heart- 
break of wives, sweethearts, and mothers ; the miseries 
of the inhabitants of occupied territory — property 
plundered, homes destroyed, women violated, whole 
sections of the population deported; the terror on 
land from the air, the terror at sea from the sub- 
marine; the constant strain, the lack of food — ^it is 
a wonder that any human beings remained sane after 
the ordeal. 



304 PATRIOTISM 

The lesson should be seared into ns. For if another 
great war comes it is likely to be far worse than this. 
The potentialities of destructiveness in high explo- 
sives have been but half revealed. Whole cities could 
be wiped out in a night by bombs from a fleet of giant 
airplanes. Submarine warfare is capable of indefinite 
expansion. Already many new poison gases have 
been discovered; and, in spite of international agree- 
ments, any big war will almost certainly make 
greater use of this type of weapon. Tank warfare, 
warfare by means of poisons and disease-germs — with 
the experience of this war to build on, we should find 
another great war far more terrible and involving 
more and more completely the entire population. 

Materially, Europe has thrown away the progress 
of a generation. Scores of thousands of towns and 
villages have been wiped out of existence, fruit-trees 
and shade-trees have been cut down over great areas, 
the soil has been so torn up and buried under the sub- 
soil as to be in some places irrecoverable. The enor- 
mous waste of the world's none too large supplies of 
oil, coal, copper, platinum, and many other natural 
resources, is a permanent loss to mankind. Much 
of the machinery of the world is badly worn, railways 
are in poor shape, tools and raw materials are every 
where lacking. In addition to this loss of capital 
the warring nations have incurred two hundred bil 
lion dollars' worth of debts which it will take genera 
tions of toil to pay off, if indeed they can ever be paid 

Even we, who got, relatively speaking, but a taste 
of the war, have found the cost of living practically 
doubled for the time being. And our expenditures 
for war, past and prospective, will continue to eat 
up far the greater part of our revenue. According 
to a report of the United States Bureau of Standards 



PEACEABLENESS 305 

for the year ending June 30, 1920, the national ex- 
penditure for that year was divided as follows : 1 per 
cent for public welfare, including agriculture, de- 
velopment of natural resources, education, public 
health, and labor; 3 per cent for public works; 3.2 
per cent for the administration of the government; 
92.8 per cent for war and the maintenance of the mili- 
tary establishment. 

Moreover, the loss is not merely material, it is 
moral. There comes, to be sure, a wave of patriotism 
and courage, of fortitude and national solidarity, 
that for the time being makes war seem a moral 
blessing. But with the relaxing of the strain there 
follows the inevitable moral exhaustion, a tired ac- 
quiescence in selfishness and graft, a wave of restless- 
ness and crime, a great increase in license of all sorts, 
prodigal expenditure, wild frivolity, and sensuality. 
Cruelty, callousness to suffering, and contempt of 
life are, of course, from tlie first engendered, as well 
as the spirit of animosity toward the nation's 
enemies; and these linger long after peace is signed. 
We have been sad witnesses in this country to the 
prevalence of prejudice and hatred, directed not only 
toward our enemies, but toward those who have 
differed from the majority in their views. Minority 
opinion has been persecuted, and intellectual dis- 
honesty has been fostered. It will take us as a people 
some time yet to quite recover from the distorting 
effect of the war-passions, and see many matters in 
their true perspective. 

Finally, every war turns men's energies away from 
the other problems that cry to be solved, diverts their 
enthusiasms from the undertakings of peace and the 
reforms that are needed. We have to pay for the 
hatred stirred up against the enemy nation by a 



306 PATEIOTISM 

relative cessation of hatred against the evils in our 
own body politic. The enemies of reform know this ; 
many wars have been made, and many more urged, in 
order to distract attention from social or political re- 
forms that seemed imminent. War is always the occa- 
sion for the accentuation of abuses for which the 
disengaged vigilance of peace would not have allowed 
so free a field. 

So we shall refuse to believe that wars must yet 
be. We shall put all our weight on the side of a gen- 
erous friendliness and mutual helpfulness between the 
peoples of the earth. We shall sternly repress the 
voices and the acts of those who seek to embroil us 
with any of these peoples, and vigilantly endeavor to 
refrain from any policy that would tend to arouse 
suspicion or fear among our neighbors. We shall fol- 
low William James's suggestion and find substitutes 
for war to engage the energies of our youth, in out- 
door sports and achievements, in the adventures of a 
fully democratized politics and industry, and in the 
long campaign against privilege, inefficiency, graft, 
and all forms of private and collective selfishness. 

This greatest of all wars needs to enlist us all. And 
the same spirit that led Nathan Hale to regret that he 
had only one life to give to his country, the spirit 
that would make twenty million men leap to arms if 
our fair land were invaded, must be kindled during 
the long, drab years of peace, for the routing out from 
our national life of all that is not worthy of the 
long line of heroes whom we honor, who paid the ulti- 
mate price, that government of the people, by the peo- 
ple, and for the people, should not perish from the 
earth. 



PEACEABLENESS 307 



SUGGESTED READINGS 

Monroe's Message to Congress, Dec. 2, 1823. (Reprinted in 
part in Foerster and Pierson, and in Fulton, op. cit.). 

Woodrow Wilson, Why We are at War. 

Theodore Roosevelt, Fear God and Take Your Own Part. 

William James, The Moral Equivalent of War in Memories 
and Studies. 

Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace, Chapters I, VIII. 

Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, Chap. XXIII. 

E. L. Godkin, Peace, in Refiections and Comments. 

Norman Angell, The Great Illusion. 

D. S. Jordan, War and Waste; Wars Aftermath. 

H. R. Marshall, War and the Ideal of Peace. 

G. R. Kirkpatrick, War, What For? 

J. H. Holmes, New Wars for Old. 

R. W. Perry, The Free Man and the Soldier. 

M. R. Rinehart, The Altar of Freedom. 

Frederic Lynch, The Christian in War Time. 

Josiah Royce, The Hope of the Great Community, Chap. I. 

Publications of the International Conciliation Association. 

Hiram Bingham, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. Ill, p. 721. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

HANDS ACROSS THE SEAS 

Peace ABLENESS is not enough. If the world is to be 
saved from a recurrence of the tragedy of 1914, it will 
be by more than a passive pacificism on our part. We 
must learn how to co-operate with the other great 
nations in the building up of a common world-wide 
civilization and the removing of the causes that have 
hitherto made human history one long record of wars. 
Just now we are conscious that we want no more war 
and intend to have no more war. But we remember 
that in less than a century and a half we have fought 
six wars. We are not likely to escape future situa- 
tions as acute. If we seriously mean to root out this 
intolerable, fratricidal way of settling disputes, we 
must do something about it. And we must set about 
doing it now, before the critical situation arises. We 
have been a leader in peace-propaganda ; that proved 
in the event, to be of no value in averting war. It 
is now our opportunity and privilege to take a leading 
part in the construction of a world-order that shall 
put an end forever to the settlement of disputes by 
the ordeal of battle. 

In the early days of our national life it was wise 
for us to remain aloof from the conflicts that perpetu- 
ally ravaged Europe. We were young and weak, 
groping our way toward a new form of society, and 
separated by a long and dangerous voyage from the 
old world. We had little intercourse with Europe, 



HANDS ACKOSS THE SEAS 309 

her problems were not ours ; and we could best serve 
the world by concentrating our thought and energy 
upon our own difficult experiment in self-government. , 
Washington and Jefferson were right, then, in coun- 
selling their fellow-countrymen to keep clear of Euro- 
pean feuds, and to make no ^^entangling alliances" 
that might drag us into war. Thus Lord Bryce was 
able to write of us, in The American Commonwealth, 
"America has lived in a world of her own. Safe from 
attack, safe even from menace, she hears from afar 
the warring cries of European races and faiths, as the 
gods of Epicurus listened to the murmurs of the un- 
happy earth spread out beneath their golden dwell- 
ings.'' 

But the times have changed. The lesson of 1917 
has taught us that we can not remain isolated any 
longer from the rest of the world, if we would. We 
have an enormous interchange of commodities, of 
letters and travellers, of investments, with Europe. 
We are now full-grown. Our experiment has suc- 
ceeded. One by one the European nations have adopt- 
ed our democratic ideals, until now we stand as one 
member, the richest and probably the strongest, in 
the family of democratic nations that encircles the 
globe. Our future is wrapped up with theirs. They 
look to us for aid. By the side of Jefferson's Decla- 
ation of Independence we must now put Wilson's 
Declaration of Interdependence. The only way now 
to make our democracy safe is to make the world safe 
for democracy. 

This does not mean "entangling alliances" — or 
promises to help any one nation against another. It 
does mean a willingness to co-operate with the rest 
of the world in constructing a mechanism of world- 
justice and peace. The experience through which we 



310 PATEIOTISM 

have passed in welding a number of separate States 
into a single nation should make us particularly use- 
ful in the difficult task of establishing for the diverse 
peoples of the earth a working world-policy. This is 
the finest possible extension of the ideals which ani- 
mated our Founders. They sowed the seeds of f ree- 
dom-in-co-operation on these shores; the plant has 
flourished, and may now be more widely spread. 
"What was in the writings of the men who founded 
America/' asks Mr. Wilson, — "to serve the selfish 
interests of America? Do you find that in their writ- 
ings? No; to serve the cause of humanity, to bring 
liberty to mankind." 

Many of us had hoped that the Great War would 
definitely mark the end of the period of our self- 
centered and self-sufficient isolation. As a recent 
writer in the Century Magazine points out, "History 
does not tell a very reassuring tale of peoples that 
have striven to live apart, any more than memoirs 
give a comforting recount of recluses ... No nation 
can cut itself off from the world without stunting its 
material and spiritual growth." It is not merely 
out of sympathy and altruism that we should stretch 
out our hands across the seas, but for our own souls' 
good, and to prevent the recurrence of a situation that 
may otherwise again arise, in which, as in 1917, we 
shall be drawn against our will into a maelstrom 
which we have not created, but which we have done 
nothing to avert. Whether we like it or not, whether 
we recognize it or not, we are now interdependent. 
Our future is linked with that of Europe and Asia. 

The endowment of peace-societies, the teaching of 
the horrors of war, should be continued. But war can 
not be stopped by education and propaganda alone, 
any more than crime can be. "Hating war is quite 



HXNDS ACEOSS THE SEAS 311 

unproductive unless you are thinking about its nature 
and causes so thoroughly that you will presently be 
able to take hold of it and control it and end it." We 
must do all we can, through pulpit, platform, and 
press, to cultivate a genuine international-minded- 
ness^ — not as a substitute for American-mindedness, 
but as its highest expression. But a mere subjective 
attitude, however generous and honorable, will not 
suffice, unless it expresses itself in an objective order, 
a world policy. 

As a means to that end, and for their own sake, we 
shall do well to cultivate friendly intercourse with 
neighboring peoples^ — exchange professorships and 
student scholarships, international sports, interna- 
tional professional organizations, and such world- 
wide societies as Clarte and Corda Fratres. But in- 
crease of intercourse means increased occasions for 
friction. It is by no means true that the more we see 
of people the more we like them. The contact of dis- 
similar social systems often results in mutual anti- 
pathy, ridicule, or contempt; manners and morals 
different from our own affect us unpleasantly, and 
defects in alien customs tend to become exaggerated 
in our memory and discourse. It is hopeless to expect 
that we shall be brought by commercial, professional, 
or personal intercourse to any widespread under- 
standing of and sympathy for the diverse standards 
of foreign peoples. Moreover, at times they will do or 
say what is really unfair and unjust. So, very likely, 
shall we. Human nature being what it is, we can not 
expect to avoid misunderstandings «and resentments. 
But they need not lead to war, and will not, if we have 
an accepted alternative means of dealing with them. 

Hitherto our efforts to devise a mechanism to settle 
misunderstandings have been confined to arbitration 



812 PATEIOTISM 

treaties and the reference of disputes to the Hague 
Tribunal. The first arbitration-treaty of modern 
times was the Jay Treaty of 1794, between the United 
States and Great Britain; and we had the honor of 
being the first nation to submit a dispute to the Hague 
Tribunal, something over a century later. At date of 
writing, America is party to some thirty treaties, in 
which we agree that all disputes between us and these 
other nations, ^^of every nature whatsoever, to the 
settlement of which previous arbitration treaties or 
agreements do not apply in their terms or are not 
applied in fact, shall, when diplomatic methods of 
adjustment have failed, be referred for investigation 
and report to an international commission'' ; we fur- 
ther agree ^^not to declare war or to begin hostilities 
during such investigation and before the report is 
submitted." 

These terms do not bind us to refrain from declar- 
ing war with these nations, as a last resort. But the 
required delay may be of immeasurable value in giv- 
ing hot heads time in which to cool ; and the report of 
the international commission should lift the dispute 
out of the realm of passion and prejudice into that of 
reason. This will not suffice to restrain a nation that 
is bent on war. But if our own people and the other 
peoples to whom we are thus bound are genuinely 
eager to maintain amicable relations, this method 
provides a way for us to preserve peace with self- 
respect. 

We may well be proud of this pioneer work in con- 
structive statesmanship. But time has proved that 
we must go farther. Roosevelt pointed out with em- 
phatic reiteration that "peace treaties and arbitration 
treaties unbacked by force are not merely useless 
but mischievous in any serious crisis. . . . The police- 



HANDS ACROSS THE SEAS 313 

man must be put back of the judge in international 
law, just as lie is back of the judge in municipal law.'' 
Such a mechanism must be made operative that no 
nation will dare to make of a treaty a "scrap of paper" 
when it feels strong enough to repudiate it. The 
whole force of the world must stand back of inter- 
national order and security. The single nation should 
no more have to worry about protecting itself than 
the private individual in a state ; the family of nations 
should see to it that each of its members is free to 
live its own life undisturbed and unintimidated by 
any other. No nation must be allowed to act as its 
own advocate, judge, and inflicter of punishment. 
Each nation must have the fullest opportunity to 
present its case ; but the common opinion of mankind 
must be the judge; and punishment — or rather, 
reparation — must be required only when the common 
opinion of mankind demands it. 

Moreover, it is not merely to prevent war that we 
need international organization. We need it to 
remedy the injustices that lead to war, to guide and 
harmonize the increasing number of activities that are 
world-wide in scope. Questions of the distribution of 
shipping, and of raw material, the control of disease, 
the distribution of labor, and its status, and a hun- 
dred other matters, can no longer be settled by the 
nations severally. To fail to co-operate in these mat- 
ters is not only to lose in efficiency, but to invite mu- 
tual hostilities. 

This is not necessarily to say that the existing 
League of Nations is the best means to these ends. 
No one can foresee at the date of this writing what 
decision the American people will come to on this 
point. But it is to say that some sort of international 
organization must replace the older anarchy, and 



314 PATRIOTISM 

replace it soon. Any scheme is sure to have defects. 
But ^^if we were to postpone the setting up of any 
machinery for the conduct of human affairs until we 
were certain that it could not possibly go wrong, or 
even until all objections were finally and completely 
answered, we should never get anywhere and never 
do anything.'' 

We must welcome, then, all honest criticism of the 
existing League, and of any other scheme that may be 
proposed or attempted. But beneath all the pros and 
cons of this discussion, we must recognize that in 
some way or other we must co-operate. The era of 
national isolations is over, we are now an integral 
part of the world. Far from being inconsistent with 
our national spirit that we should take our place in 
this world-order, it would be fatally inconsistent that 
we should refuse to do so. When we think of our 
own personal desires and interests, it must always be 
"America first." But when we think of the other 
peoples who need our help and co-operation, it must 
be "America for the world.'' 

We must frankly admit that co-operation may in- 
volve sacrifice; sometimes material sacrifice, some- 
times sacrifice of prestige or supposed "national 
honor." It is, however, a false conception of honor 
that would lead us to refuse the compromises inherent 
in co-operation. We must take the lead in the willing- 
ness to see the general interest of mankind prevail, if 
there is a conflict, over our national desires and ex- 
pectations. We must be willing to abide loyally by 
the decision of the international tribunal, even if we 
feel it to be unjust or mistaken. If it falls to our lot 
to make a concession for the general good, we must 
be ready to make it. There are few precedents upon 
which to base decisions in international matters, there 



HANDS ACKOSS THE SEAS 315 

are few judges not unconsciously biased. Impartial, 
absolutely just and wise decisions we hope there will 
be; but there are bound to be some that seem, and 
perhaps are, one-sided, unfair to some nation, based 
upon an insufficient grasp of the facts, or -colored by 
passion and prejudice. The essential thing is that 
we take these decisions, when they are made, as 
good sports; just as in baseball the game cannot go 
on unless both sides accept in good humor the um- 
pire's decisions. 

The federation of the world is coming. But how 
fast? How great a leap forward will statesmen dare 
now to take? And, whatever plan they try to put into 
operation, will it work? The answer to these ques- 
tions depends upon the state of mind of the people of 
the nations that are to be thus federated. It is not 
exclusively a problem for statesmen and students of 
international law, though their expert services will 
be needed. It is in even greater degree a problem for 
the moralists, the educators, the editors and preach- 
ers, and all who can help mould the minds of men. 
For difficult as it is going to be to complete a just and 
workable system of international law and administra- 
tion, that difficulty is as nothing to that of persuading 
the people of the component nations to give that loyal 
allegiance to this new authority which alone can 
transform it from a paper plan into a working system. 
It should be a matter of pride with us to be foremost 
in this next step in the world's progress. 

There is, then, no duty more pressing than to 
awaken our people to the realization of the imperative 
need of world-organization; not merely that such an 
organization may be elaborated, but that it may be 
loyally upheld through the long period of readjust- 
ments and necessary concessions. We must not let 



316 PATEIOTISM 

the world lapse into a complacent self -congratulation 
on the collapse of Teutonic militarism and the exit of 
Kaisers and kings. Other nations may yet become 
powerful, arrogant, imperialistic; the lessons of his- 
tory are quickly forgotten by the ambitious and the 
proud — and, indeed, there are examples of successful 
aggression as striking as those of defeated ambition. 
Sources of fr-iction and bitterness will long persist, 
injustices will still rankle, thwarted ambitions still 
smoulder. The growing complexity of international 
relations will produce more occasions than ever for 
friction. Nothing is more likely than that this will 
not be the last war, unless we set to work with utmost 
determination and create a mechanism which shall 
make the penalties for aggression so instant and cer- 
tain that it will be universally recognized as suicidal. 
Nothing is more certain than that injustices will be 
committed and inequities persist, unless we find a 
way to settle the world's problems in peaceful co- 
operation. 

We must combat by might and main that vague 
optimism that expects things to come out all right 
if they are left alone, that inertia that would let the 
peoples sink back into another era of unchecked na- 
tionalistic rivalry. It is to be hoped that the paci- 
fists, i. e., the passivists, who counted on the efflcacy 
of non-resistance in touching the hearts of the preda- 
tory and the proud, who thought that words, and 
paper treaties, could shame them or win them to a 
brotherly spirit, have learned their lesson. Isolated 
instances to the contrary, human nature is, unhappily, 
such that its fiercer impulses cannot be tamed by 
charity and patience. The ingenuity for evil and the 
blind passions of men must be counteracted by a 
greater ingenuity in devising the good and a greater 



HANDS ACEOSS THE SEAS 317 

and wiser passion in embodying it. Effort, effort of 
organization, of thinking, of training, of education, is 
the inexorable price of progress. 

And then, our plain duty is to forget our fears and 
suspicions of other nations' intentions, our bitterness 
and hatred and scorn of their wrongdoing, and to cul- 
tivate sympathy and understanding. For the former 
mental attitudes create trouble just as surely as the 
latter heal it. Our great danger now is not from 
Germany, or Japan, or any other nation, it is from 
ourselves. We are unchastened by years of suffering, 
we are rich, proud, unbeaten; we want our way in 
everything. Lately we have been hearing all about 
us the cries for revenge of those who would have us 
punish more severely an already prostrate enemy, 
keep our clutch on her throat, treat her as her auto- 
cratic rulers would have treated us. In no such way 
can a lasting peace be established. Might does not 
make right simply because it is our might. The time 
has come to apply the Golden Rule in politics. What 
we should be thinking of is not an enemy's past sins, 
but the future of the family of nations. It is not a 
weak surrender to return good for evil, it is safe- 
guarding the future welfare of man. 

Patriotism, like charity, begins at home. But it 
does not end there. It is rather a matter of concentric 
circles. Loyalty to one's family, or to one's club or 
college, does not imply disloyalty to the city or vil- 
lage in which one lives; nor does civic pride involve 
disloyalty to State or nation. Similarly, love and 
loyalty to our country does not rightly require dis- 
loyalty to the great brotherhood of man which not 
only Christianity but the most elementary common 
sense holds up to us as the supreme object of our 
sacrifice and service. Surely we must cultivate "the 



318 PATKIOTISM 

international mind" — it is our most pressing duty 
just now, because international sentiment has as yet 
been so little cultivated. But to suppose that the 
era of international co-operation and loyalty is going 
to lessen our national pride and patriotism is a seri- 
ous blunder. It is going to clarify and purge them, 
it is not going to make them less coercive or less beau- 
tiful. 

Certainly if we fail to achieve a successful interna- 
tional organization in the near future, the effort and 
sacrifice of the War will have been largely wasted. 
The organization of an enduring peace is the only 
result which could compensate the world for these 
years of destruction and death, and the serious set- 
back to civilization. Mr. Wilson, who, whatever his 
mistakes, has been the prophet of the new era, stated 
clearly what w^as implied in the slogan, "The war to 
end war.'' He declared, in an address to the Senate, 
on January 22, 1917, that "if the peace presently to 
be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure, 
by the organized major force of mankind ... It is 
inconceivable that the people of the United States 
should play no part in that great enterprise ... It 
is clear to every man who can think, that there is in 
this no breach in either our traditions or our policy 
as a nation, but a fulfilment of all that we have pro- 
fessed or striven for." 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Washington's Farewell Address. 

W. H. Taft and W. J. Bryan, Addresses at Lahe Mohonh, 1916. 
(Reprinted in International Conciliation, no. 106). 

Woodrow Wilson, The Hope of the World. (Addresses, 1918- 
1920). 

A. Lawrence Lowell, H. Holt and others, in Towards an Endur- 
ing Peace. 



HANDS ACROSS THE SEAS 319 

C. W. Eliot, The Road toward Peace, Chap. XVII. 
R. Goldsmith, A League to Enforce Peace. 

H. N. Brailsford, A League of Nations. 
J. A. Hobson, Towards International Government. 
Norman Angell, America and the New World State. 
William H. Taft, The United States and Peace, IV. 

D. H. Trueblood, The Federation of the World. 
L. Curtis, A Commonwealth of Nations. 

D. J. Hill, American World Policies. 
S. P. Duggan, The League of Nations. 

J. B. Moore, American Diplomacy, its Spirit and Achieve- 
ments. 
Raymond Fosdick, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 125, p. 845. 
Pamphlets of the International Conciliation Association. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

AMERICANIZATION 

We have now completed our survey of American 
ideals, from the stout assertion of political independ- 
ence, of 1776, to the keen realization of interdepend- 
ence, of 1917. It remains to ask whether our people 
as a whole, or certain classes of our people, are clearly 
enough conscious of these ideals ; and whether forces 
should be set at work to accelerate their spread, and 
to deepen devotion to them. It is that process of 
awakening comprehension of, and loyalty to, these 
ideals, that we call today Americanization. 

Between a seventh and an eighth of our population 
today are foreign-born. Concerning these no sweep- 
ing statement can be made. They are of all types, 
of every nationality, of all degrees of education. 
Among them are some undesirables, as among the na- 
tive-born. But the great mass of them are hard- 
working, honest, and loyal. The majority of them be- 
come citizens; and if they do not, their children are 
citizens by birth. In general, these aliens, when they 
arrive, are eager to learn our language, our customs, 
our ideals. If some of them become indifferent and 
cynical and lawless, it is usually because we have 
failed in our duty to them. 

It may be questioned, however, whether, on the 
whole, the immigrant needs Americanization more 
than the native. From many schools comes the report 
that the children of immigrants are more eager and 

320 



AMERICAOTZATION 321 

industrious and patriotic than the children of the 
older stock. From many public libraries comes the 
report that the immigrants and their children read 
the serious books while the children of the upper class 
read novels and detective stories. In some towns, 
indeed, the public library does not welcome the immi- 
grants ; or at least they do not feel at home there, and 
have not the boldness to intrude. But where an effort 
is made to show them that they are welcome, they 
often turn out to be ardent readers of history, science, 
poetry, biography, and the drama. 

The boys and girls of American parentage are very 
apt to have a sense of superiority which is not war- 
ranted. As a matter of fact, most of them know little 
enough about the duties of citizenship, and think little 
about either the history of our country or its present 
problems. They become citizens automatically, by 
growing up, and are less apt to be conscious of the 
meaning of citizenship than the alien to whom it is 
granted as a privilege. We hear of the danger of the 
^'foreign element.'' But on the whole, the ignorance 
of the foreigners is no more dangerous than the 
apathy of the natives. The bigger part of the task of 
Americanization is that of Americanizing our native 
youth, keeping alive in them the vision that fired their 
fathers, and adding to it the wisdom that our national 
experience has brought. 

There are, of course, special needs of the immigrant. 
If he does not speak or read English, we must offer 
him every facility to learn the language of his adopted 
country. There is no difficulty here except that of the 
cost of providing instruction and of finding spare 
energy for learning on the part of tired, hard-working 
men and women. There is no lack of desire to learn ; 
the immigrant has every reason for learning, it is to 



322 PATKIOTISM 

his advantage more obviously than to ours. There 
is no need of coaxing him to learn ; and it is a tactical 
error to require him to learn, by compulsory legisla- 
tion. There is so much forcing of the national lan- 
guage upon minority races in Europe that many immi- 
grants instinctively resent it ; it is a sign of the sort 
of thing they have come to America to escape. We 
must remember that a knowledge of English by no 
means ensures loyalty ; and we must beware of sacri- 
ficing the end to the means. 

Many an immigrant who can not speak English is 
intensely loyal. And if the conditions of his life and 
work are such that it is practically impossible for him 
to find the time or energy to learn, we must blame our- 
selves rather than him, and worry more over a harsh 
industrial order than over his ignorance of English. 
His children will learn it in the public schools, and 
will use it in preference to their parents' speech. ( Of 
course it goes without saying that all the public 
schools in the land must be conducted in English.) 
Meantime, the foreign-language press can do, and is 
doing, a valuable service in teaching the non-English- 
reading aliens about America and reporting for them 
the events of the day. With few exceptions, this 
foreign-language press has been loyal, and of great 
service in the Americanization process. To attempt 
to censor it is unnecessary, and would be extremely 
unwise, undoing our best attempts to describe Amer- 
ica as the land of liberty, and showing it to be actually 
a land of mistrust and repression. 

Every effort, also, should be made to teach the 
various groups of immigrants the meaning and history 
of our institutions. Much can be done through the 
trade unions, the churches, the public libraries, the 
social settlements, community centers, and open 



AMERICANIZATION 323 

forums, and, of course, the evening schools. Often 
valuable seed can be sown by some holiday celebra- 
tion, pageant, or special meeting. Neighborhood sing- 
ing and neighborhood theatres could be utilized far 
more than they yet have been. The Boy Scout and 
Girl Scout movements reach not only the children, 
with their admirable discipline, but through the chil- 
dren bring often new ideas and attitudes to their 
parents. In addition to these diverse means, much 
might be done by the sending of lecturers to speak to 
various immigrant groups in their own halls, on 
topics in which they are interested, combating what- 
ever un-American propaganda there may be with open 
argument and the exposition of American principles. 
The work with the children is, of course, of para- 
mount importance. And we should forget the dis- 
tinction between the children of immigrants and the 
children of natives. We need a great deal more for all 
of them than the lifeless ^^civics" of the typical school 
course. Mr. Arnold Bennett, in his recent volume. 
Your United States^ writes, ^^I do positively think 
that American education does not altogether succeed 
in the very important business of inculcating public 
spirit into young citizens." The statement is mod- 
erate; in most cases we ignominiously fail. We must 
teach every child, not only the outward forms of our 
government and social institutions, but their meaning 
and spirit. We should teach the ideals that have been 
wrought into the laws of the land, and show their 
reasonableness. The great body of our laws are 
plainly just and righteous; a code of morals is exem- 
plified in them, and can be taught without partisan- 
ship or bigotry. Thus the laws and institutions of 
America will come to seem beneficent instead of re- 
pressive. And if there are bad laws, this study of 



324 PATRIOTISM 

reasons and principles will serve to breed critics of 
them — the best possible outcome. 

Indeed, one of the dangers of which we must beware 
is that of inculcating a complacent attitude toward 
our institutions as they are. Americanism should not 
be thought of as something static, but as something 
in process of realization. The evils in our present 
political and industrial order should be frankly faced, 
and the youth of our land encouraged to consider 
seriously and with open mind the various reforms 
proposed. For the danger ahead of us is less that of 
unrest than that of fatuous optimism and inertia. If 
we look backward with pride to our past history, it 
should be to draw fresh inspiration to help us in 
grappling with the problems of the present. The alien 
agitator's ignorance of the worth of our institutions 
is a less menacing evil than the native American's 
ignorance of their defects. Civics must be taught 
not as the description of a finished political system, 
but as the description of a changing set of laws and 
institutions, which are attempting ever more and more 
adequately to embody certain fundamental ideals^ — 
liberty, equality, and the like — but which need the 
energies of generations yet to perfect. 

There is no present danger that alien ideals will 
undermine our American traditions. The foreigners 
among us are a comparatively small group ; and their 
prestige is even less than their numbers. Evei^where 
the older Americans have things in their own hands. 
Our danger is not that of overthrow by hostile ideals, 
it is rather that of decay from within. Indeed, the 
analysis of the "radical" Vote in recent elections 
shows that it has less strength in the States where 
the immigrant population is largest than in certain 
Western States where fewer aliens live. And radical- 



AMERICANIZATION 325 

ism by no means always goes with either ignorance or 
disloyalty. The real strength of radicalism today 
lies in groups of university graduates, men and wo- 
men who are perhaps more or less impractical theor- 
ists, but who for the most part are idealists and in- 
tensely devoted to the welfare of their country. The 
complete stoppage of immigration would make little 
difference in the amount of radical thought. The only 
way to meet this thought is to meet it ; to let it express 
itself openly, and to answer it in earnest but good- 
tempered discussion. Met in that manner it will be 
a salutary ingredient in our national life, balancing 
the inert standpat-ism of other groups and contrib- 
uting its insights to our counsels. 

The Freudian psychologists have taught us of the 
danger to our mental life from the isolation and sup- 
pression of certain ideas and "complexes." So in our 
social life, the danger lies in the isolation of groups, 
whose ideas become more and more set and fanatical 
from lack of contact with other currents of thought. 
If there is suppression by an unsympathetic majority, 
we have all the conditions of social hysteria. What 
we need is the application of the "melting-pot'' con- 
cept not only to racial stocks, but to their ideas. 
Above all things we must beware of allowing a dom- 
inant majority to attempt to rubberstamp our people 
with their particular beliefs. We must welcome the 
contributions of diverse races and schools of thought, 
seeking to learn something from each and to weave 
them all into the texture of our growing civilization. 

We have in this country a unique opportunity to 
profit by the rich cultural heritage of the various im- 
migrant groups. The American of the future is to be 
a composite photograph, a blend of these diverse 
traits. Each strain has its values, has something to 



326 PATRIOTISM 

contribute to the symphony of American life. Profes- 
sor Dewey has recently put it thus : ^'The way to deal 
with hyphenism is to welcome it, but to welcome it in 
the sense of extracting from each people its special 
good, so that it shall surrender into a common fund 
of wisdom and experience what it especially has to 
contribute. All these surrenders and contributions 
taken together create the national spirit of America." 

Mr. Rabindranath Tagore has sharply criticized the 
mania for stereotyping manners and ideas that he, 
like many other observers, finds in this country. 
"America lacks respect for unlikeness, for otherness. 
Its democracy seeks to make all men alike, to run 
them into one mold, to rob them or shame them out of 
their picturesqueness or diversity. Americanization 
seems to mean that when all accept a certain formula 
it is enough ; but old racial traits and cultural charac- 
teristics can not be ironed out of humanity. Nor 
should they be. It is not a melting-pot that is needed, 
but a flower-garden, where each race may bloom and 
add its beauty to the commonwealth." 

Above all things, we must banish that patronizing, 
contemptuous air that so many Americans of the older 
stock assume toward the more recent immigrants. 
We must sternly rebuke the use of those derisive 
nicknames that prolong antipathy and beget resent- 
ment. If their ignorance and low standard of living 
irks us, the remedy is obviously to give them educa- 
tion and better living conditions. If they become 
a menace to our institutions, or to our standards of 
living, it is far less due to their recalcitrancy than 
to our neglect. 

We must remember, also, that the teaching the alien 
receives is a small part of the influences that are at 
work upon him. In the words of a recent bulletin of 



AMEKICANIZATION 327 

the federal Department of Education, ^The immi- 
grant is becoming either Americanized or anarchized 
by every experience which he undergoes, every condi- 
tion to which he is subjected. Americanization is in 
a measure the problem of the school. But it is also 
a matter of prevention of exploitation, of good hous- 
ing, of clean milk for babies, of adequate wages, of 
satisfactory industrial conditions, of the spirit of 
neigh borliness between Americans, old and new. 
Everything that touches the immigrant's life is an in- 
strument for his Americanization or the reverse.'^ 
In general it may be said that if the immigrant finds 
himself well treated in this country he will be loyal. 
Kindness, courtesy, justice, opportunity for a normal 
human life for himself and his children — this is the 
obvious way to make the newcomers to these shores 
patriotic American citizens. 

We must confess that our record is far from clean 
in this fundamental respect. Listen to the words of 
one who is thoroughly conversant with the situation — 
not an agitator or alien but a conservative and 
earnestly loyal American : ^^The immigrant arrives at 
the port of entry. After passing his examination 
(during which time not a friendly word of greeting 
is given him, or a personal interest taken in him) he 
is turned loose upon the city, to be met at the gate 
by cabmen, porters, runners, crooks, thieves, and every 
conceivable kind of exploiter interested in getting his 
cash money. This is America's first reception line. 
He then meets our second reception line — the employ- 
ment agent, the private banker, and ^steering agent,^ 
who derive profit from his labor before it has even 
become productive. When the immigrant actually 
goes to work, he has generally lost his money and is 
in debt. He then meets our third American reception 



328 PATKIOTISM 

line, the employer interested only in his labor output, 
and he is treated accordingly ... By the time the 
immigrant has shaken hands along these various re- 
ception lines he feels he knows everybody, and he has 
a very definite idea of liberty, justice, freedom, law, 
order, and measures of happiness, which in no sense 
accords with our forefathers' ideal of America." 

This same writer describes an industrial plant 
where immigrants are employed. "His men sleep five 
to fifteen in a room, often on the floor and in their 
clothing; they have no care and eat badly prepared 
food. They crowd family houses, destroying privacy 
and morality . . . Ona native-born American con- 
trols the health, decency, morality, and efficiency of 
some 8,000 immigrant workmen, whose only protest is 
to move on, and whose only future is high enough 
wages to return to their home country. And the 
worst of it is that men get used to these conditions, 
believing them to be American ; and with this belief go 
the dreams, the visions, and the ambitions which are 
the essence of good citizenship. The prospective good 
citizen is sacrificed to the demand for cheap labor, 
which is a native-American demand." 

Conditions are, of course, by no means always so 
bad as this. But they are sometimes as bad, and they 
are seldom anywhere near what they ought to be. 
This is the crux of the problem of Americanization. 
These people are being fashioned not by what we 
preach to them, but by what we do to them. How 
can they believe in the sincerity of our professions 
of idealism when they find themselves exploited on 
every hand and unable to live a decent human life? 
Actions speak louder than words ; and what they see 
is a scramble for profits, a race in which the clever 
and the aggressive and the fortunate push their way 



AMEKICANIZATION 329 

to a competence, while the timid and conscientious 
get pushed to the wall. They see honest and brave 
men deported or sent to prison for daring to voice 
opinions contrary to the accepted creed. They find 
themselves with little ^^effective liberty/' little actual 
equality of opportunity; their democratic rights are 
apt to seem a mockery. Only efficiency seems a genu- 
ine American ideal — an efficiency in whose name they 
are treated as mere unthinking ^^hands." Often they 
are bitterly disillusioned in their dreams of America. 
No doubt they are often partly to blame. But the 
greater blame rests upon the rest of us, who allow 
them to be so bewildered and exploited and driven to 
a disillusionment so rapid and so harsh. 

The writer of a magazine article that has appeared 
since the above words were set down has so well ex- 
pressed the root of the matter that some sentences 
of his are best appended: "You may give the alien 
evening schools and continuation schools; you may 
teach his wife in the home and his daughter in the 
factory; you may flood him with reprints of the 
Declaration of Independence and the speeches of Lin- 
coln; and when you have finished, you will be no 
farther along the road of winning his heart and his 
co-operation than when you began. 

"What we have to do is, therefore, clear enough. 
It is not, as the now popular phrase has it, that we 
must Americanize the Americans. It is much more 
than that. Before the immigrant can be won over, we 
must Americanize America herself. We must lift 
American institutions and American practices to the 
high plane of America's own traditions. We must 
come to look upon the immigrant as he is, a boon to 
us and an equal, instead of a nuisance and an unin- 
vited invader. And we must somehow meet his ideal 



330 PATKIOTISM 

of US and our country by fashioning them in the 
mould of the ideals and the aspirations of the twen- 
tieth century. When we have done this much, life 
itself will take care of the future. For America is 
still very much in the making, and it will require 
the energy and the goodwill and the traditions of all 
the peoples of the earth, working together, to make her 
what she started out to be, a greater and a freer and 
a nobler Europe." 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

E. A. Steiner, Nationalizing America. 

Woodrow Wilson, Speech at Philadelphia, May 10, 1915. 

(Reprinted in Foerster and Pierson, op. cit., p. 178). 
U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin: America, Americanism,, 

Americanization. 
Mahoney and Herlikey, First Steps in Americanization. 
Mary Austin, The Young Woman Citizen. 
R. L. Ashley, The New Civics. 
C. A. and M. R. Beard, American Citizenship. 
A. W. Dunn, The Citizen and the Community. 
Moley and Cook, Lessons in Democracy. 
W. H. Allen, Universal Training for Citizenship and Public 

Service. 
Alissa Franc, Use Your Government. 
E. W. Adams, A Community Civics. 
Frances A. Kellor, Straight America. 
Winthrop Talbot, Americanization. 
Gino Speranza, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 125, p. 263. 
John Kulamer, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 125, p. 416. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

FAITH IN AMERICA 

This volume has been concerned rather with criticism 
and warning than with eulogy and congratulation. 
We are far too prone to brag of our achievements and 
too little disposed to acknowledge our shortcomings. 
If the American spirit is to find its splendid fulfil- 
ment, it will be not through a complacent acquies- 
cence in things as they are, but through our earnest 
efforts to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way 
and to embody that spirit more completely in legisla- 
tion and practice. 

But the picture must not be drawn too dark. We 
have not yet fully realized our fathers' dreams, but, 
on the whole, we have done well. And the signs of 
the times are full of promise. There is more criticism 
of our institutions, more fault-finding, more clash of 
interpretation and program, than ever. But that is 
because more people are taking our historic ideals 
seriously, more people are interesting themselves in 
their realization. We perceive the difficulties more 
keenly, we realize the mistakes that have been made, 
we are not so blindly optimistic. But we have not 
lost faith. And precisely this spirit of criticism, 
this chorus of proposals, this growing soberness of 
reflection, warrants our faith and pledges its fulfil- 
ment. 

Already the relative success of our experiment in 
self-government has had an enormous effect upon the 

331 



332 PATEIOTISM 

rest of the world. And more than ever we have the 
opportunity to play the role of spiritual as well as 
material leader. In the inspiring words of Roose- 
velt, "We are not only custodians of the hopes of our 
children, but in a peculiar sense we are custodians 
of the hope of the world." "Our nation is that one 
among all the nations of the earth which holds in its 
hands the fate of the coming years. We enjoy excep- 
tional advantages, and are menaced by exceptional 
dangers; and all signs indicate that we shall either 
fail greatly or succeed greatly. I firmly believe that 
we shall succeed; but we must not be foolishly blind 
to the dangers by which we are threatened, for that is 
the way to fail.'' 

Not only will our future have an influence far 
beyond our geographical frontiers, but millions more, 
scores of millions, are coming to these shores, to join 
their fortunes with ours. What they are to become 
rests very largely with us of the older American 
stock. By the middle of this century we shall doubt- 
less have a population of more than a hundred and 
fifty million, by its close probably two hundred mil- 
lion. And this within the lifetime of people now liv- 
ing! What a challenge to our idealism! We are a 
ver-y young nation, not yet a hundred and fifty years 
old — a mere moment in the history of man. Infinite 
vistas stretch before us. Why should not our nation 
endure for thousands of centuries? Surely there 
could be no object more worthy of our effort and sacri- 
fice than to help shape the polity and guide the devel- 
opment of this youthful giant among the nations. 

Kings and Kaisers have fallen; the battle against 
political autocracy, of the sort that has so long 
plagued the earth, seems won. But the democracies 
are still far from safe. They will not be safe from 



FAITH IN AMEEICA 333 

one another until they have perfected an international 
organization that will secure justice and peace for all 
the world. They will not be safe from internal dis- 
ruption until they succeed in establishing a complete 
internal justice and liberty. One long epoch of man's 
histoiy is over; it is time to gird ourselves for the 
next struggle. The War is over; the War begins. 

We must definitely realize that moral and social 
progress are not automatic, they come through human 
effort. And there are powerful forces making for in- 
justice, materialism, license, for decadence and dis- 
ruption. It is a perpetually shifting battle. Our 
codes have to become continually more intricate to 
meet the new methods of exploitation, the new forms 
of inequity, the new follies, that are forever being 
devised. We have by no means reached a point of 
safety. The belief in social progress has become al- 
most a dogma with us, a dogma supported by the ma- 
terial progress that nothing now apparently, save a 
prolonged world- war, can check. But moral and 
social degeneracy may go hand in hand with material 
progress, with national power and pride. Thus it 
may be that our greatest dangers lie ahead. Our fu- 
ture is still problematic. Faith in it we must have; 
but faith without works is dead. 

It is a salutary exercise, then, to consider the newer 
forms of sin, for which the growing complexity of our 
social life has opened the way. Certain industrial 
evils, certain forms of profiteering and graft, certain 
forms of commercialized vice, that have become al- 
ready widespread, were unknown to our founders. 
We live, in our cities, less in one another's eyes than 
our fathers lived. Our social restraints have in some 
ways become greatly relaxed. We have drifted far 
from what Mrs. Wharton rather ironically calls the 



334 PATRIOTISM 

Age of Innocence — as recent a period as the eighteen 
seventies. Privilege has become bolder, sinister ^'in- 
terests" more powerful, the congestion of wealth and 
the wanton luxury of the rich more marked, poverty 
more acute, class consciousness more widespread and 
bitter. 

But when we look back and remember that we have 
succeeded in abolishing political tyranny, and human 
slavery, have risen above the bitter sectionalism of 
our early years, have devised and put into operation 
a thousand ingenious plans for the checking of private 
selfishness and the forwarding of the common good, 
we turn to the future with confidence. These newer 
evils can also be overcome. Our people are becoming 
better and better educated ; the churches are awaking 
more and more to their duty as teachers and fortifiers 
of our national ideals. The number of voluntary as- 
sociations devoted to the forwarding of specific causes 
is increasing yearly. Great potentialities for good lie 
in professional associations, in trade unions, and 
other organizations along vocational lines. The con- 
ception is gaining headway that the government exists 
not merely to protect the individual in his rights but 
positively to forward the general welfare. Our pio- 
neering is nearly done ; a larger and larger part of our 
surplus energy can be freed for attention to the moral 
and social problems that confront us. The new gen- 
eration includes many thousands of young men and 
women who are studying these problems and are de- 
termined to find solutions. 

In 1910 Mr. William Allen White published a book 
with the title, ''The Old Order Changeth." At a date 
so recent as that it was common to hold, with this 
author, that the days of bossism, of the "invisible 
government," of graft and corruption, were numbered. 



FAITH m AMERICA 335 

The experiences of the past few years have shown ns 
that the millennium is not yet at hand. But they 
have also shown the tremendous latent energy and 
idealism in our people. The problem is, how to 
arouse it, to focus it upon the evils to be cured, and 
make it effective for progress. 

Two things we must cease to be afraid of. We must 
not be afraid of "unrest," of "agitation," of open dis- 
cussion and experiment. Stagnation, acquiescence in 
evil, apathy, and blindness to the defects in our social 
order, are worse than unrest. We cannot afford yet 
to settle down and take our ease. Our forefathers 
were not afraid of unrest when they threw the tea 
overboard in Boston Harbor, when they resisted the 
redcoats at Lexington and Concord. The real cause 
of revolutions is never the spirit of unrest; that is 
secondary. The real cause is the existence of injus- 
tice, the autocratic and selfish rule of man over man, 
the poignant contrast between power and impotence, 
or between wealth and poverty. The ostrich-policy 
will not save us. The danger is not in wrong think- 
ing, it is in not thinking at all, in letting things drift. 

Every serious alteration in our political or social 
system has been dubbed un-American, and its spon- 
sors persecuted as traitors. Roger Williams was ban- 
ished from Massachusetts for his advocacy of religious 
liberty. Garrison was dragged through the streets of 
Boston for daring to oppose slavery. The secret 
ballot, the gold standard, the conservation policy, the 
civil service — these and many other reforms were red 
rags to the self-styled "true Americans." Yet these 
reforms have been accepted, as many more will yet 
be, as embodying better than the older forms the true 
American spirit. 

The other thing we must cease to be afraid of is 



336 PATEIOTISH 

spending money raised by taxes. We cannot evolve 
the America of our dreams without spending very 
much greater sums than we have yet been willing to 
spend for public education and health, for reforesta- 
tion and irrigation, for social insurance of many 
sorts. These expenditures, if wisely made, will far 
more than pay for themselves in dollars and cents, 
in the increased efficiency of our people. They will 
pay a thousandfold in heightened happiness, and in 
the deepened loyalty of a contented and prosperous 
people. There is no sign more hopeful for our future 
than our growing willingness to spend money in 
ways that will redound to the benefit of all the people, 
making their opportunities for self-development more 
equal and securing for them a more effective liberty. 
Another hopeful sign lies in our growing national 
solidarity. In spite of our being at first a union of 
originally separate States, and in spite of our being 
a composite people, drawn from all the diverse races 
of Europe, we have now far more homogeneity, far 
less sectionalism, than most European countries. It 
is often impossible from manner or habits or point 
of view to tell whether a man comes from Boston or 
from San Francisco. Nowhere else in the world does 
this homogeneity hold true of so large an area. The 
people of Maine and Florida, of Oregon and Texas, 
have confidence in one another, think of one another 
as neighbors and as like themselves. Washington 
warned his countrymen in his Farewell Address that 
"every portion of our country finds the most com- 
manding motives for carefully guarding and preserv- 
ing the union of the whole.'' Such a warning is no 
longer necessary; the permanence and integrity of 
our union is now beyond question. The best thought 



FAITH IK AMERICA 337 

of our citizens from Maine to California is at the 
service of a united country. 

There is no excuse, then, for pessimism. We must 
retain the faith of our founders. They had for- 
midable difficulties to meet, but they believed firmly 
in the future of their new people. Our recent 
hysteria over the ^^reds" is a sign of lack of faith. 
Our ideals are strong enough to stand shocks. Our 
future is safe if, in Wilson's words, ^^We be but true 
to ourselves — to ourselves as we have wished to be 
known in the counsels of the world, in the thought of 
all those who love liberty, justice, and right exalted." 
We want, not a blind faith in our country, but a 
fighting faith, an open-eyed faith, a faith that nerves 
us to action. We must look to the future not with 
distrust and apprehension, but with eager expectation 
fortified by a determined resolve. This is the spirit 
of the often-quoted words of our best-beloved poet : 

"Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears. 
Are all with thee — are all with thee." 

We can still have unclouded faith, in spite of the 
lapse in our practice, so long as the American spirit 
is taught to our youth. Our national literature is a 
literature shot through with ideals, our history is a 
record of heroic deeds. So long as our schools and 
our churches, our poets and our orators hold up these 
high ideals to fire the hearts of our boys and girls, 
we need not fear for our future. Mr. Edward Steiner 
has touched the heart of the matter when he says, 
"I do not believe that the future of a nation is written 
in the land it occupies or in the language it speaks, 



338 PATEIOTISM 

or in the tradition it inherits ; its future lies written 
in its will. . . . What shall we be? That which we 
want America to be, and determine it to be. . . . And 
may God grant that to be an American may, in the 
future, mean something better and more significant 
than what we now understand it to mean.'' 

The lover of his country will dream of a land far 
more beautiful than that which now is. The smoke 
and grime of our cities must go, the crowded, ill- 
smelling tenements, the dreary unloveliness of our 
slums. City-planning must replace the careless 
anarchy of the past. Civic centers, with noble build- 
ings and ample open spaces, must be created. Beauty, 
which in the old days was but for the few, shall here 
be for all. Our national parks and forests are already 
the wonder of the world. The next generation must 
see the reservation of public playgrounds in still more 
generous measure. This country is not for the rich 
alone, but for every citizen's pride and joy. We must 
take more interest in beautifying our countryside, 
our schools and public buildings, our river fronts and 
highways. So shall our country be dear and grateful 
to the outward eye as well as to the hearts of those 
who love her. 



"O beautiful for patriot's dream. 

That sees beyond the years 
Thine alabaster cities gleam, 

Undimmed by human tears ; 
America ! America ! 

God shed His grace on thee, 
And crown thy good with brotherhood, 

From sea to shining sea." 



FAITH IN AMERICA 339 

SUGGESTED READINGS 

Lincoln's Addresses. 

Emerson's Essay on Lincoln, in Miscellanies. 

J. H. Einley and J. Sullivan, American Democracy from 

Washington to Wilson. 
M. G. Fulton, ed., Roosevelt's Writings. 
E. A. Steiner, From Alien to Citizen. 
R. W. McLaughlin, Washington and Lincoln. 
Mary Antin, The Promised Land. 
Jacob Riis, The Making of an American. 
Anon: Undistinguished Americans. 
Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life. 
Henry Van Dyke, Essays in Application, Chap. I. 
Felix Adler, The World Crisis and its Meaning, Chap. III. 
G. A. Turkington, My Country. 
J. C. Small, ed.. Home, Then What? 
S. C. Bryant, I am an American. 
John Dewey, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 26, p. 311. 



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